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’Watching the city lights . . . waiting, listening — always listening." 

[Page 352I 


JAPONETTE 


BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS 


Author of “The Younger Set,” “The Fighting Chance,” 
“The Adventurers of a Modest Man,” 

“Ailsa Paige,” etc. 



With Illustrations 
By CHARLES DANA GIBSON 


A. L. BURT COMPANY 

Publishers ^ New York 



G ^ 5 

° *3 Ov 


Copyright, 1912, by 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 


Copyright, 1911, 1912, by International Magazine Company 
under the title “The Turning Point” 


•x 1 

[Placement 


Published March, 1912 


Printed in the United States of America 


TO 

ETHEL AND LUCILLE FOREMAN 













TTE 


CHAPTER I 

IN FORMA PAUPERIS 

* HE failure of the old-time firm of Ed- 
gerton, Tennant & Co. was unusual 
only because it was an honest one — the be- 
wildered creditors receiving a hundred cents 
on a dollar from property not legally in- 
volved. 

Edgerton had been dead for several years; 
the failure of the firm presently killed old 
Tennant, who was not only old in years, but 
also old in fashion — so obsolete, in fact, were 
the fashions he clung to that he had used his 
last cent in a matter which he regarded as in- 
volving his personal honor. 

The ethically laudable but materially ruin- 
ous integrity of old Henry Tennant had made 
matters rather awkward for his orphaned 
nieces. Similar traditions in the Edgerton 
family — of which there now remained only a 
single representative, James Edgerton 3d — 


Japonette 


devastated that young man’s inheritance so 
completely that he came back to the United 
States, via Boston, on a cattle steamer and 
arrived in New York the following day with 
two dollars in loose silver and a confused de- 
termination to see the affair through without 
borrowing. 

He walked from the station to the nearest 
of his clubs. It was very early, and the few 
club servants on duty gazed at him with 
friendly and respectful sympathy. 

In the visitors’ room he sat down, wrote 
out his resignation, drew up similar valedicto- 
ries to seven other expensive and fashionable 
clubs, and then picked up his two suit cases 
again, declining with a smile the offered as- 
sistance from Read, the doorman who had 
been in service there as long as the club had 
existed. 

“ Mr. Edgerton,” murmured the old man, 
“ Mr. Inwood is in the Long Room, sir.” 

Edgerton thought a moment, then walked 
to the doorway of the Long Room and looked 
in. At the same time Inwood glanced up 
from his newspaper. 

“ Hello ! ” he exclaimed ; “ is that you, Ed- 
gerton ? ” 


2 


In Forma Pauperis 


“ Who the devil do you think it is ? ” re- 
plied Edgerton amiably. 

They shook hands. Inwood said: 

“ What’s the trouble — a grouch, a hang- 
over, or a lady ? ” 

Edgerton laughed, placed his suit cases on 
the floor, and seated himself in a corner of 
the club window for the first time in six 
months — and for the last time in many, many 
months to come. 

“ It’s hot in town,” he observed. “ How 
are you, Billy ? ” 

“ Blooming. Accept from me a long, cold 
one with a permanent fizz to it. Yes? No? 
A Riding Club cocktail, then? What? Nix 
for the rose-wreathed bowl ? ” 

Edgerton shook his head. “ Nix for the 
bowl, thanks.” 

“ Well, you won’t mind if I ring for first- 
aid materials, will you ? ” 

The other politely waved his gloved 
hand. 

A servant arrived and departed with the 
emergency order. Jnwood pushed an un- 
pleasant and polychromatic mess of Sunday 
newspapers aside and reseated himself in the 
leather chair. 


3 


Japonette 


“ I’m terribly sorry about what happened 
to you, Jim,” he said. “ So is everybody. We 
all thought it was to be another gay year of 

that dear Paris for you ” 

“ I thought so, too,” nodded Edgerton ; 
“but what a fellow thinks hasn’t anything to 
do with anything. I’ve found out that.” 

Inwood emptied his glass and gazed at the 
frost on it, sentimentally. 

“ The main thing,” he said, “ is for your 

friends to stand by you ” 

“ No; the main thing is for them to stand 
aside — kindly, Billy — while I pass down and 
out for a while.” 

“ My dear fellow ” 

“ While I pass out repeated Edgerton. 
“ I may return ; but that will be up to me — 
and not up to them.” 

“Well, what good is friendship?” 

“ Good to believe in — no good otherwise. 
Let it alone and it’s the finest thing in the 
world; use it, and you will have to find an- 
other name for it.” 

He smiled at Inwood. 

“Friendship must remain always the hap- 
piest and most comforting of all — theories,” 
he said. “ Let it alone ; it has a value ines- 
4 


In Forma Pauperis 

timable in its own place — no value other- 
wise.” 

Inwood began to laugh. 

“ Your notion concerning friends and 
friendship isn’t the popular one.” 

“ But my friends will sleep the sounder for 
knowing what are my views concerning 
friendship.” 

“ That’s cynical and unfair,” began the 
other, reddening. 

“ No, it’s honest; and you notice that even 
my honesty puts a certain strain on our 
friendship,” retorted Edgerton, still laughing. 

“ You’re only partly in earnest, aren’t 
you ? ” 

“ Oh, I’m never really in earnest about any- 
thing. That’s why Fate extended an unerring 
and iron hand, grasped me by the slack of my 
pants, shook me until all my pockets turned 
inside out, and set me down hard on the trol- 
ley tracks of Destiny. Just now I’m crawling 
for the sidewalk and the skirts of Chance.” 

He laughed again without the slightest bit- 
terness, and looked out of the window. 

The view from the club window was sooth- 
ing; Fifth Avenue lay silent and deserted in 
the sunshine of an early summer morning. 

2 5 


Japonette 


Inwood said : “ The papers — everybody — 
spoke most glowingly of the way your firm set- 
tled with its creditors/’ 

“ Oh, hell ! Why should ordinary honesty 
make such a stir in New York? Don’t let’s 
talk about it; I’m going home, anyway.” 

“Where?” 

“ To my place.” 

“ It’s been locked up for over a year, hasn’t 
it?” 

“Yes, but there’s a janitor ” 

“ Come down to Oyster Bay with me,” 
urged Inwood; “come on, Jim, and forget 
your troubles over Sunday.” 

“ As for my troubles,” returned the other, 
rising with a shrug and pulling on his gloves, 
“ I’ve had leisure on the ocean to classify and 
pigeonhole the lot of them. I know exactly 
what I’m going to do, and I’m going home to 
begin it.” 

“ Begin what ? ” inquired Inwood with a 
curiosity entirely friendly. 

“ I’m going to find out,” said Edgerton, 
“ whether any of what my friends have called 
my ‘ talents ’ are real enough to get me a job 
worth three meals a day, or whether they’ll 
merely procure for me the hook.” 

6 


In Forma Pauperis 


“ What are you thinking of trying? ” 

“ I don’t know exactly. I thought of turn- 
ing some one of my parlor tricks into a future 
profession — if people will let me.” 

“ Writing stories? ” 

“ Well, that, or painting, or illustrating — 
music, perhaps. Perhaps I could write a play, 
or act in some other fellow’s ; or do some 
damn thing or other — ” he ended vaguely. 
And for the first time Inwood saw that his 
friend’s eyes were weary, and that his face 
seemed unusually worn. It was plain enough 
that James Edgerton 3d had already jour- 
neyed many a league with Black Gare, and 
that he had not yet outridden that shadowy 
horseman. 

“ Jim,” said Inwood seriously, “ why won’t 
you let me help you — ” But Edgerton 
checked him in a perfectly friendly manner. 

“ You are helping me,” he said ; “ that’s why 
I’m going about my business. Success to 
yours, Billy. Good-by ! I’ll be back ” — 
glancing around the familiar room — “ some- 
time or other; back here and around town, 
everywhere, as usual,” he added confidently; 
and the haunted look faded. He smiled and 
nodded with a slight gesture of adieu, picked 
7 


Japonette 


up his suit cases, and, with another friendly 
shake of his head for the offers of servants’ 
assistance, walked out into the sunshine of 
Fifth Avenue, and west toward his own abode 
in Fifty-sixth Street. 

When he arrived there, he was hot and 
dusty, and he decided to let Kenna carry up 
his luggage. So he descended to the area. 

Every time he pulled the basement bell he 
could hear it jingle inside the house some- 
where, but nobody responded, and after a 
while he remounted the area steps to the 
street and glanced up at the brown-stone 
faqade. Every window was shut, every cur- 
tain drawn. That block on Fifty-sixth Street 
on a Sunday morning in early summer is an 
unusually silent and deserted region. Edger- 
ton looked up and down the sunny street. 
After Paris the city of his birth seemed very 
mean and treeless and shabby in the merciless 
American sunshine. 

Fumbling for his keys he wondered to what 
meaner and shabbier street he might soon be 
destined, now that fortune had tripped him 
up; and how soon he would begin to regret 
the luxury of this dusty block and the com- 
forts of the house which he was now about 
8 


In Forma Pauperis 


to enter. And he fitted his latch-key to the 
front door and let himself in. 

It was a very clumsy and old-fashioned 
apartment house, stupidly built, five stories 
high ; there was only one apartment to a floor, 
and no elevator. The dark and stuffy auster- 
ity of this out-of-date building depressed him 
anew as he entered. Its tenants, of course, 
were away from town for the summer 
— respectable, middle-aged people — stodgy, 
wealthy, dull as the carved banisters that 
guarded the dark, gas-lit well of the staircase. 
Each family owned its own apartment — had 
been owners for years. Edgerton inherited 
his floor from an uncle — widely known among 
earlier generations as a courtly and delight- 
ful old gentleman — an amateur of antiquities 
and the possessor of many very extraordinary 
things, including his own private character 
and disposition. 

Carrying his suit cases, which were pasted 
all over with tricolored labels, the young man 
climbed the first two flights of stairs, and then, 
placing his luggage on the landing, halted to 
recover his breath and spirits. 

The outlook for his future loomed as dark 
as the stair well. He sat down on the top 
9 


Japonette 


step, lighted a cigarette, and gazed up at the 
sham stained glass in the skylight above. And 
now for the first time he began to realize 
something of the hideousness of his present 
position, his helplessness, unfitted as he was 
to cope with financial adversity or make an 
honest living at anything. 

If people had only let him alone when he 
first emerged from college as mentally naked 
as anything newly fledged, his more sensible 
instincts probably would have led him to re- 
main in the ancient firm of his forefathers, 
Edgerton, Tennant & Co., dealers in iron. 

But fate and his friends had done the busi- 
ness for him, finally persuading him to go 
abroad. He happened, unfortunately, to pos- 
sess a light, graceful, but not at all unusual, 
talent for several of the arts; he could tinkle 
catchy improvisions on a piano, sketch in oil 
and water colors, model in clay, and write the 
sort of amateur verse popular in college pe- 
riodicals. Women often evinced an inclina- 
tion to paw him and tell him their troubles; 
fool friends spoke vaguely of genius and 
“ achieving something distinctly worth while ” 
— which finally spoiled a perfectly good busi- 
ness man, especially after a third-rate period- 
ic) 


In Forma Pauperis 

ical had printed one of his drawings, and a 
fourth-rate one had published a short story 
by him; and the orchestra at the Colonnade 
had played one of his waltzes, and Bernstein 
of the Frivolity Theater had offered to read 
any libretto he might send. 

So he had been ass enough to take a va- 
cation and offer himself two years’ study 
abroad ; and he had been away almost a year 
when the firm went to the wall, carrying with 
it everything he owned on earth except this 
apartment and its entailed contents, which he 
could neither cast into the melting pot for his 
creditors nor even sell for his own benefit. 
However, the creditors were paid dollar for 
dollar, and those finer and entirely obsolete 
points of the Edgerton honor remained silver 
bright ; and the last of the Edgertons was back 
once more in New York with his apartment, 
his carvings, tapestries and pictures, which 
the will forbade him to sell, and two dollars 
change in his pockets. 

Presently he cast his cigarette from him, 
picked up his suit cases, and started upward, 
jaw set. It was a good thing for him that he 
had a jaw like that. It was his only asset 
ii 


Japonette 


now. So far in life, however, he had never 
used it. 

Except the echo of his tread on the uncar- 
peted staircase, not another sound stirred in 
the house. Every landing was deserted, every 
apartment appeared to be empty and locked 
up for the summer. Dust lay gray on banis- 
ter and landing ; the heated atmosphere reeked 
with the odor of moth balls and tar paper 
seeping from locked doors. 

On the top floor a gas jet flickered as usual 
in the corridor which led to his apartment. 
By its uncertain flame he selected a key from 
the bunch he carried, and let himself into his 
own rooms ; and the instant he set foot across 
the threshold he knew that something was 
wrong. 

Whether it had been a slight sound which 
he fancied he heard in the private passage- 
way, or whether he imagined some stealthy 
movement in the golden dusk beyond, he 
could not determine ; but a swift instinct 
halted and challenged him, and left him lis- 
tening. 

As he stood there, checked, slowly the idea 
began to possess him that there was some- 
body else in the apartment. When the slight 
12 


In Forma Pauperis 


but sudden chill had left him, and his hair 
no longer tingled on the verge of rising, he 
moved forward a step, then again halted. For 
a moment, still grasping both suit cases, he 
stood as though at bay, listening, glancing 
from alcove to corridor, from one dim spot 
of light to another where a door ajar here and 
there revealed corners of empty rooms. 

Whether or not there was at that moment 
another living being except himself in the 
place he did not know, but he did know that 
otherwise matters were not as he had left them 
a year ago in his apartment. 

For one thing, here, under his feet, was 
spread his beautiful, antique Daghestan run- 
ner, soft as deep velvet, which he had left 
carefully rolled up, sewed securely in burlap, 
and stuffed full of camphor balls. For an- 
other thing, his ear had caught a low, rhyth- 
mical sound from the mantel in his bedroom. 
It was his frivolous Sevres clock ticking as 
indiscreetly as it had ever ticked in the bou- 
doir of its gayly patched and powdered mis- 
tress a hundred and fifty years ago — which 
was disturbing to Edgerton, as he had been 
away for a year, and had left his apartment 
locked up with orders to Kenna, the janitor, 
13 


Japonette 


to keep out until otherwise instructed by let- 
ter or cable. 

Listening, eyes searching the dusk, he heard 
somewhere the rustle of a curtain blowing at 
an open window; and, stepping softly to his 
dining-room door, he turned the knob cau- 
tiously and peered in. 

No window seemed to be open there; the 
place was dark, the furniture still in its linen 
coverings. 

As he moved silently to the butler’s pantry, 
where through loosely closed blinds the sun- 
shine glimmered, making an amber-tinted 
mystery of the silence, it seemed for a mo- 
ment to him as though he could still hear some- 
where the stir of the curtain; and he turned 
and retraced his steps through the library. 

In the twilight of the place, half revealed as 
he passed, he began now to catch glimpses of 
a state of things that puzzled him. 

Coming presently to his dressing room, he 
opened the door, and, sure enough, there was 
a window open, and beside it a curtain flut- 
tered gayly. But what completely monopo- 
lized his attention was a number of fash- 
ionable trunks — wardrobe trunks, steamer 
trunks, hat trunks, shoe trunks — some open, 
14 


In Forma Pauperis 


and the expensive-looking contents partly vis- 
ible ; some closed and covered. And on every 
piece of this undoubtedly feminine luggage 
were the letters D. T. or S. T. 

And on top of the largest trunk sat a live 
cat. 


CHAPTER II 

CORPUS DELICTI 

» HE cat was pure white and plumy, and 
Persian. Out of its wonderful sky- 
blue eyes it looked serenely at Edgerton ; and 
the young man gazed back, astonished. Then, 
suddenly, he caught a glimpse of the bedroom 
beyond, and froze to a statue. 

The object that appeared to petrify him lay 
flung across his bed — a trailing garment of 
cobweb lace touched here and there with rose- 
tinted ribbons. 

For a moment he stared at it hypnotized; 
then his eyes shifted wildly to his dresser, 
which seemed to be covered with somebody 
else’s toilet silver and crystal, and — what was 
that row of cunning little commercial curls! 
— that chair heaped with fluffy stuffs, lacy, 
intimate things, faintly fragrant! 

With a violent shiver he turned his startled 
16 


Corpus Delicti 


eyes toward the parted tapestry gently stir- 
ring in the unfelt summer wind. 

From where he stood he could see into the 
great studio beyond. A small, flowered silk 
slipper lay near the threshold, high of heel, 
impertinent, fascinating; beyond, on the cor- 
ner of a table stood a bowl full of peonies, 
ivory, pink, and salmon-tinted ; and their per- 
fume filled the place. 

Somebody had rolled up the studio shades. 
Sunshine turned the great square window to 
a sheet of dazzling glory, and against it, 
picked out in delicate silhouette, a magic 
shadow was moving — a dainty, unreal shape, 
exquisite as a tinted phantom stealing through 
a fairy tale of Old Japan. 

Suddenly the figure turned its head and 
saw him, and stood motionless against the 
flare of light — a young girl, very slim in her 
shimmering vestments of blossom-sprayed 
silk. 

The next moment he walked straight into 
the studio. 

Neither spoke. She examined him out of 
wide and prettily shaped eyes; he inspected 
her with amazed intentness. Everything about 
her seemed so unreal, so subtly fragrant — the 

1 7 


Japonette 


pink peonies like fluffy powder-puffs above 
each little close-set ear, the rose-tinted sil- 
houette of her, the flushed cheeks, soft bare 
arms, the silk-sheathed feet shod in tiny straw 
sandals tied with vermilion cords. 

“ Who are you ? ” she asked ; and her voice 
seemed to him as charmingly unreal as the 
rest of the Japanese fairy tale that held him 
enthralled. 

“ Will you please go out again at once 1 ” 
she said, and he woke up partly. 

“ This — this is perfectly incredible, ” he said 
slowly. 

“ It is, indeed,” she said, placing a snowy 
finger upon an electric button and retaining it 
there. 

He regarded her without comprehension, 
muttering : 

“ I — I simply cannot realize it — that cat — 
those g-garments — you ” 

“ There is another thing you don’t realize,” 
she said with heightened color, “ that I am 
steadily ringing the janitor’s bell — and the 
janitor is large and violent and Irish, and he 
is probably halfway upstairs by this time ” 

“ Do you take me for a malefactor?” he 
asked, astounded. 


18 


Corpus Delicti 


“ I am not afraid of you in the least,” she 
retorted, still keeping her finger on the bell. 

“ Afraid of me? Of course you are not.” 
“ I am not l Although your two suit cases 
are probably packed with the silver from my 
dressing stand.” 

“ What!” 

“ Then — then — what have you put into your 
suit cases? What are you doing in this apart- 
ment? And will you please leave your suit 
cases and escape immediately ? ” 

Her voice betrayed a little unsteadiness 
now, and Edgerton said: 

“ Please don’t be frightened if I seem to 

remain ” 

“ You are remaining ! ” 

“Of course, I am.” He forced an embar- 
rassed smile. “ I’ve got to ; I haven’t any 
other place to go. There are all kinds of com- 
plications here, and I think you had better 
listen to me and stop ringing. The janitor is 
out anyway.” 

“He is not l” she retorted, now really 
frightened ; “ I can hear him coming up the 

stairway — probably with a p-pistol ” 

Edgerton turned red. “ When I next set 
eyes on that janitor,” he said, “ I’ll probably 
19 


Japonette 


knock his head off. . . . Don't be frightened ! 
I only meant it humorously. Really, you must 
listen to me, because you and I have some 
rather important matters to settle within the 
next few minutes.” 

In his growing perplexity and earnestness 
he placed his suit cases on the rug and ad- 
vanced a step toward her, and she shrank 
away, her hands flat against the wall be- 
hind her, the beautiful, frightened eyes fixed 
on his — and he halted. 

“ I haven’t the slightest notion who you 
are,” he said, bewildered ; “ but I’m pretty 
sure that I’m James Edgerton, and that this 
is my apartment. But how you happen to be 
inhabiting it I can’t guess, unless that rascally 
janitor sublet it to you supposing that I’d be 
away for another year and never know it.” 

“ You! — James Edgerton!” she exclaimed. 

“ My steamer docked yesterday.” 

(< You are James Edgerton? — of Edgerton, 
Tennant & Co.?” 

He began to laugh. 

“ I was James Edgerton, of Edgerton, Ten- 
nant & Co. ; I am now only a silent partner in 
Fate, Destiny & Co. ... If you don’t mind 
— if you please — who are you?” 

20 


Corpus Delicti 


“Why, I’m Diana Tennant!” 

“ Who?” 

“Diana Tennant! Haven’t you ever heard 
of my sister and me?” 

“ You mean you’re those two San Francisco 
nieces ? ” he asked, astonished. 

“ I’m one of them. Silvette is sitting on the 
roof.” 

“ On — the roof l ” 

“Yes; we have a roof garden — some ge- 
raniums and things, and a hammock. It’s 
just a makeshift until we secure employment. 
. . . Is it possible that you are really James 
Edgerton ? And didn’t you know that we had 
rented your apartment by the month ? ” 

He passed an uncertain hand over his 
eyes. 

“ Will you let me sit down a moment and 
talk to you ? ” he said. 

“ Please — of course. I do beg your par- 
don, Mr. Edgerton. ... You must under- 
stand how startling it was to look up and see 
a man standing there with two suit cases.” 

He began to laugh ; and after a moment 
she ventured to smile in an uncertain, bewil- 
dered way, and seated herself in a big velvet 
chair against the light. 


21 


Japonette 


They sat looking at each other, lost in 
thought: he evidently absorbed in the prob- 
lem before him; she, unquiet, waiting, the re- 
flex of unhappy little perplexities setting her 
sensitive lips aquiver at moments. 

“ You did rent this apartment from the 
janitor?” he said at length. 

“ My sister and I — yes. Didn’t he have 
your permission?” 

“ No. . . . But don’t worry. . . . I’ll fix it 
up somehow ; we’ll arrange ” 

“ It is perfectly horrid ! ” she exclaimed. 
“ What in the world can you think of us ? . . . 
But we were quite innocent — it was merely 
chance. Isn’t it strange, Mr. Edgerton ! — 
Silvette and I had walked and walked and 
walked, looking for some furnished apart- 
ment within our means which we might take 
by the month; and in Fifty-sixth Street 
we saw the sign, ‘ Apartment and Studio 
to let for the summer,’ and we inquired, and 
he let us have it for almost nothing. . . . 
And we never even knew that it belonged 
to you !” 

“To whom did you draw your checks for 
the rent?” 

“We were to pay the janitor.” 


Corpus Delicti 


“ Have you done so ? ” he asked sharply. 

“ N-no. We arranged — not to pay — until 

we could afford it ” 

“ I’m glad of that ! Don’t you pay that 
scoundrel one penny. As for me, of course 

I couldn’t think of accepting ” 

“ Oh, dear ! oh, dear ! ” she said in pretty 
despair ; “ I’ve got to tell you everything now ! 
Several humiliating things — circumstances — 
very tragic, Mr. Edgerton.” 

“No; you need not tell me a single thing 
that is likely to distress you.” 

“But I’ve got to! You don’t understand. 
That wretched janitor has put us in a position 
from which there is absolutely no escape. Be- 
cause I — we ought to go away instantly — 
b-but we — can’t ! ” 

“ Not at all, Miss Tennant. I ought to 
leave you in possession, and I — I’m trying to 
think out how to — to do it.” 

“ How can we ask you to, do such a ” 

“You don’t ask; I’ve got to find some 

means — ways — expedients ” 

“ But we can't turn you out of your own 
place!” 

“ No; but I’ve got to turn myself out. If 

you’ll just let me think ” 

23 


Japonette 


“ I will — oh, I will, Mr. Edgerton ; but 
please, please let me explain the dreadful and 
humiliating conditions first, so that you won’t 
consider me absolutely shameless.” 

" I don’t 1 ” 

“You will unless I tell you — unless I find 
courage to tell you how it is with my sister 
and me.” 

“ I’d like to know, but you must not feel 
obliged to tell me.” 

“I do feel obliged! I must! We’re poor. 
We’ve spent all our money, and we can't go 
anywhere else very well ! ” 

Edgerton glanced at the luxury in the next 
room, astonished ; then his gaze reverted to the 
silk-clad figure before him. 

“ You don’t understand, of course,” she 
said, flushing. “ How could you suppose us 
to be almost penniless living here in such a 
beautiful place with all those new trunks and 
gowns and pretty things ! But that is exactly 
why we are doing it ! ” 

She leaned forward in her chair, the tint of 
excitement in her cheeks. 

“ After the failure, Silvette and I hadn’t 
anything very much! — you know how every- 
thing of uncle’s went — ” She stopped 
24 


Corpus Delicti 


abruptly. “ Why — why, probably everything 
of yours went, too! Did it?” 

He laughed : “ Pretty nearly everything.” 

“ Oh ! oh ! ” she cried ; “ what a perfectly 
atrocious complication ! Perhaps — perhaps 
you haven't money enough to — to go some- 
where else for a while. Have you ? ” 

“ Well, I'll fix it somehow.” 

“ Mr. Edgerton ! ” she said excitedly, “ Sil- 
vette and I have got to go ! ” 

“ No,” he said laughing, “ you’ve only got 
to go on with your story, Miss Tennant. I 
am a very interested and sympathetic listener.” 

“ Yes,” she said desperately, “ I must go on 
with that, too. Listen, Mr. Edgerton; we 
thought a long while and discussed everything, 
and we concluded to stake everything on an 
idea that came to Silvette. So we drew out 
all the money we had and we paid all our 
just debts, and we parted with our chaperone 
— who was a perfect d-darling — I’ll tell you 
about her sometime — and we took Argent, 
our cat, and came straight to New York, and 
we hunted and hunted for an apartment until 
we found this ! And then — do you know what 
we did ? ” she demanded excitedly. 

“ I couldn’t guess ! ” said Edgerton, smiling. 
25 


Japonette 


“We bought clothes — beautiful clothes ! 
And everything luxurious that we didn’t have 
we bought — almost frightened to death while 
we were doing it — and then we advertised ! ” 

“ Advertised ! ” 

“From here! Can you ever forgive us?” 
“ Of course,” he said, mystified; “ but what 
did you advertise ? ” 

“ Ourselves ! ” 

“ What! ” 

“ Certainly ; and we’ve had replies, but we 
haven’t liked the people so far. Indeed, we 
advertised in the most respectable daily, week- 
ly and monthly papers — ” She sprang to her 
feet, trotted over to the sofa, picked up an 
illustrated periodical devoted to country life, 
and searching hastily through the advertising 
pages, found and read aloud to him, still 
standing there, the following advertisement : 

“ Two ladies of gentle birth and breeding , 
cultivated linguists , musicians, thoroughly 
conversant with contemporary events, efficient 
at auction bridge, competent to arrange din- 
ners and superintend decorations, desire env- 
ployment in helping to entertain house parties, 
week-ends, or unwelcome but financially im- 
portant relatives and other visitations, at coun - 
26 


Corpus Delicti 


try houses , camps, bungalows, or shooting 
boxes . 

“ For terms write to or call at Apartment 
Five ■” 

She turned her flushed face toward him. 

" Your address in full follows,” she said. 
“ Can you ever bring yourself to forgive 
us? ” 

His astonished gaze met hers. “ That 
doesn’t worry me,” he said. 

“ It is generous and — splendid of you to 
say *»,” she faltered. “You understand now, 
don’t you? We had to spend all our money 
on clothes; and we thought ourselves so for- 
tunate in this beautiful apartment because it 
was certain to impress people, and nobody 
could possibly suspect us of poverty with that 
great picture by Goya over the mantel and 
priceless tapestries and rugs and porcelains in 
every direction — and our cat to make it look as 
though we really belonged here.” Her voice 
trembled a moment on the verge of breaking 
and her eyes grew brilliant as freshly washed 
stars, but she lifted her resolute little head 
and caught the tremulous lower lip in her 
teeth. Then, the crisis over, she dropped the 
illustrated paper, came slowly back to her 

27 


Japonette 


chair and sank down, extending her arms 
along the velvet upholstery in silence. 

Between them, on the floor, a sapphire rug 
stretched its ancient Persian folds. He looked 
at it gravely, thinking that its hue matched 
her eyes. Then he considered more impor- 
tant matters, plunging blindly into profound 
abstraction; and found nothing in the depths 
except that he had no money to go anywhere, 
but that he must go nevertheless. 

He looked up after a moment. 

“ Would you and your sister think it in- 
hospitable of me if I ask when you — I mean 
—if I ” 

“ I know what you mean, Mr. Edgerton. 
Silvette and I are going at once.” 

“You can’t. Do you think I’d permit it? 
Please remember, too, that you’ve advertised 
from here, and you’ve simply got to remain 
here. All I meant to ask was whether you 
think it might be for a week or two yet, but, 
of course, you can’t tell — and forgive me 
for asking — but I was merely trying to 
adjust several matters in my mind to condi- 
tions ” 

“ Mr. Edgerton, we cannot remain. There 
is not in my mind the slightest doubt concern- 
28 


Corpus Delicti 


mg your financial condition. If you could 
let us stay until we secured employment, 
I’d ask it of you — because you are James 
Edgerton ; but you can’t ” — she rose with de- 
cision — “ and I’m going up to the roof to tell 
Silvette.” 

“If you stir I’ll take those suit cases and 
depart for good.” 

“ You are very generous — the Edgertons 
always were, I have heard, but we cannot ac- 


He interrupted, smiling: “I think the Ten- 
nants never needed instruction concerning the 
finer points of obligation.” . . . He stood a 
moment thoughtfully, turning over and over 
the two dollars in his pocket; then with a 
laugh he walked across the studio and picked 
up his suit cases. 

“ Don’t do that ! ” she said in a grave voice. 

“ There is nothing else to do, Miss Ten- 
nant.” 

“ There’s another bedroom.” 

They stood, not regarding one another, con- 
sidering there in the sunshine. 

“ Will you wait until I return ? ” she asked, 
looking up. “ I want to talk to Silvette. . . . 
I’d like to have Silvette see you. Will you 
29 


Japonette 


wait? Because I’ve come to one of my quick 
conclusions — Fm celebrated for them, Mr. 
Edgerton. Will you wait ? ” 

“ Yes,” he said, smiling. 

So she trotted away in her little straw 
sandals and flowery vestments and butterfly 
sash; and he began to pace the studio, hands 
clasped behind him, trying to think out mat- 
ters and ways and means — trying to see a way 
clear which offered an exit from this com- 
plication without forcing him to do that one 
thing of which he had a steadfast horror — 
borrow money from a friend. 

Mingled, too, with his worried cogitations 
was the thought of Henry Tennant’s nieces — 
these young California girls of whom he had 
vaguely heard without any particular interest. 
New Yorkers are never interested in relatives 
they never saw ; seldom in any relatives at all. 
And, long ago, there had been marriage be- 
tween Tennant and Edgerton — in colonial 
days, if he remembered correctly; and, to his 
own slight surprise, he felt it now as an added 
obligation. It was not enough that he efface 
himself until they found employment; more 
than that was due them from an Edgerton. 
And, as he had nothing to do it with, he won- 
30 


Corpus Delicti 


dered how he was to do anything at all for 
these distant cousins. 

Standing there in the sunshine he cast an 
ironical glance around him at the Beauvais 
tapestries, the old masters, the carved furni- 
ture of Charles II’s time, rugs dyed with the 
ancient splendor of the East, made during the 
great epoch when carpets of Ispahan, Damas- 
cus — and those matchless hues woven with 
gold and silver which are called Polish — deco- 
rated the palaces of Emperor and Sultan. 

Not one thing could he sell under the will 
of Peter Edgerton to save his body from 
starvation or his soul from anything else ; and 
he jingled the two dollars in his pocket and 
thought of his talents, and wondered what 
market there might be for any of them in a 
city where bricklayers were paid higher wages 
than school teachers, and where the wealthy 
employed others to furnish their new and 
gorgeous houses with everything from pic- 
tures and books to the ancient plate from 
which they ate. 

And, thinking of these things, his ears 
caught a slight rustle of silk ; and he lifted his 
head as Diana Tennant and her sister Silvette 
came toward him through the farther room. 

31 


CHAPTER III 

SUB JUDICE 

I SN’T this a mess ! ” said Silvette in a 
clear, unembarrassed voice, giving him 
her hand. “ Imagine my excitement up on 
the roof, Mr. Edgerton, when Diana appeared 
and told me what a perfectly delightful man 
had come to evict us ! ” 

“ I didn’t say it that way,” observed Diana, 
her ears as pink as the powder-puff peonies 
above them. “ My sister,” she explained, “ is 
one of those girls whose apparent frankness is 
usually nonsense. I’m merely warning you, 
Mr. Edgerton.” 

Silvette — a tall free-limbed, healthy, and 
plumper edition of her sister — laughed. “ In 
the first place,” she said, “ suppose we have 
luncheon. There is a fruit salad which I pre- 
pared after breakfast. Our maid is out, but 
we know how to do such things, having been 
made to when schoolgirls.” 

32 


Sub Judice 


“ You’ll stay, won’t you?” asked Diana. 

“ Poor Mr. Edgerton — where else is he to 
go?” said Silvette calmly. “Diana, if you’ll 
set places for three at that very beautiful and 
expensive antique table, I’ll bring some agree- 
able things from the refrigerator.” 

“ Could I be of any use? ” inquired Edger- 
ton, smiling. 

“ Indeed, you can be. Talk to Diana and 
explain to her how respectable we are and you 
are, and how everything is certain to be 
properly arranged to everybody’s satisfaction. 
Diana has a very wonderful idea, and she’s 
come to one of her celebrated snap-shot con- 
clusions — a conclusion, Mr. Edgerton, most 
flattering to you. Ask her.” And she went 
away toward the kitchenette not at all embar- 
rassed by her pretty morning attire nor by the 
thick braid of golden hair which hung to her 
girdle. 

Diana cast a swift glance at Edgerton, and, 
seeing him smile, smiled, too, and set about 
laying places for three with snowy linen, 
crystal, silver, and the lovely old Spode porce- 
lain which had not its match in all the city. 

“ It’s like a play or a novel,” she said ; “ the 
hazard of our coming here the way we did, 

33 


Japonette 


and of you coming back to America; but, of 
course, the same cause operated in both cases, 
so perhaps it isn’t so remarkable after all! 
And ” — she repressed a laugh — “ to think that 
I should mistake you for a malefactor ! Did 
it seem to you that I behaved in a silly man- 
ner ? ” 

“ On the contrary, you exhibited great dig- 
nity and courage and self-restraint.” 

“ Do you really mean it ? I was nearly 
scared blue, and I was perfectly certain you’d 
stuffed your suit cases full of our toilet silver. 
Wasn’t it funny, Mr. Edgerton! And what 
did you think when you looked into your 
studio and saw a woman ? ” 

“ I was — somewhat prepared.” 

“ Of course — after a glimpse into our bed- 
room! But that must have astonished you, 
didn’t it?” 

“ Slightly. The first thing I saw was a 
white cat staring at me from the top of a 
trunk.” 

She laughed, arranging the covers with deft 
touch. 

“ And what next did you see ? ”, 

“ Garments,” he explained briefly. 

“Oh! Yes, of course.” 

34 


Sub Ju dice 


“ Also a silk-flowered slipper with a very 
high heel on the threshold.” 

“ Mine,” she said. “ You see, in the days * 
of our affluence, I used to have a maid. I 
forget, and throw things about sometimes.” 

“ You’ve a maid now, haven’t you? ” 

“ Oh, just a combination cook and waitress 
until we can find employment. She’s horridly 
expensive, too, but it can’t be helped, because 
it would create an unfavorable impression if 
Silvie or I answered the door bell.” 

“ You’re quite right,” he said ; “ people have 
a curious aversion to employing those who 
really need it. Prosperity never lacks em- 
ployment. It’s odd, isn’t it?” 

“ It’s rather cruel,” she said under her 
breath. 

Silvette came in bringing a chilled fruit 
salad, bread and butter, cold chicken, and tea. 

“ We’ll have to put it all on at once. You 
don’t mind, do you, Mr. Edgerton ? ” 

He said smilingly but distinctly : “ One’s 
own family can do no wrong. That is my 
creed.” 

Diana looked up at him. 

“ I wondered whether you knew we were 
relations,” she said, flushing deliciously. 

35 


Japonette 


“ You see,” added Silvette, “ it was not for 
us to remind you.” 

“ Of our kinship? Why not?” 

“ Because you might have considered it an 
added obligation toward us,” said Diana, 
blushing. 

“ I do — a delightful one ; and it is very 
gracious of you to acknowledge it.” 

“ But we don’t mean to presume on it,” in- 
terrupted Silvette hastily. “ Some day we 
really do mean to regulate our financial obli- 
gations toward you.” 

“ There are no such obligations. Please re- 
member what roof covers you ” 

“Mr. Edgerton!” 

“ And whose salt ” 

“‘It’s our salt, anyway,” said Diana; “I 
bought it myself ! ” 

They seated themselves, laughing; then 
suddenly Edgerton remembered, and he went 
away with a hasty excuse, only to return again 
with a brace of decanters. 

“ My uncle’s port and sherry,” he said. 

Silvette jumped up and found half-a-dozen 
old-time glasses ; and the luncheon continued. 

“ Isn’t it ridiculous ! ” observed the young 
fellow, glancing around the studio ; “ here am 
36 


Sub Judice 


I surrounded by a fortune in idiotic antiqui- 
ties, lunching from a table that the Metro- 
politan Museum inherits after my death, sip- 
ping a sherry which came from the cellars 
of a British monarch — with two dollars and 
several cents in my pockets, and not the 
slightest idea where to get more. Isn't it 
funny ! ” 

Silvette forced a smile, then glanced signifi- 
cantly at her sister. Diana said, gravely: 

We have several hundred dollars. Would 
you be kind enough to let us offer you what 
you require for immediate use until ” 

“ Why, you blessed child ! ” he said, laugh- 
ing, “ that isn’t what worries me now ! ” 

“Then — what is it?” inquired Silvette. 

“ You and your sister.” 

“ What do you mean, Mr. Edgerton ? ” 

“ I mean that I’m worried over your pros- 
pects ! ” 

“ Why, they are perfectly bright ! ” ex- 
claimed Diana. “ In a few days somebody 
will employ us to help entertain a number of 
stupid and wealthy people. We’ll make a 
great deal of money, I expect; don’t you, 
Silvie?” 

“ Certainly ; but I’m wondering what Mr. 

37 


Japonette 


Edgerton is going to do with two dollars in 
his pocket and us in his apartment.” 

“ So am I,” said Diana. 

“ It’s perfectly charming of you to care.” 

“ What an odd thing to say to us ! Is it not 
very natural to care? Besides your being re- 
lated, you have also been so considerate and 
so nice to us that we’d care anyway, I think. 
Don’t you, Silvie?” 

Silvette nodded her golden-crowned head. 

“ The thing to do for the present,” she said, 
“ is for you to take that farther room. It was 
Diane’s idea, and I entirely agree with her 
— after seeing you.” 

“ That was the sudden conclusion of which 
I spoke to you,” explained Diana. “ Such 
things come to me instinctively. I thought to 
myself, ‘ If he mentions the kinship between 
us, then we’ll ask him to remain.’ And you 
did. And we do ask you; don’t we, Silvie? ” 

“ Certainly. If two old maids wish to en- 
tertain their masculine cousin for a week or 
two, whose affair is it? Let Mrs. Grundy 
shriek; I don’t care. Do you, Diane? ” 

“ No, I don’t. Besides,” she added naively, 
“ she’s out of town.” 

They all laughed. The germ of a delightful 

38 


Sub Judice 


understanding was beginning to take shape; 
it had already become nascent and was devel- 
oping in every frank smile, every candid 
glance, every unembarrassed question and 
reply. 

“We have no parents,” said Diana gravely. 
“ You have none, have you ? ” 

“ No,” he said. 

“ Then it seems natural to me, our being 
here together ; but ” — and Diana glanced side- 
ways at him — “ in the East, I believe, people 
consider relationship of little or no impor- 
tance.” 

He sipped his sherry, reflecting. 

“ As a rule,” he said ; “ but ” — and he 
laughed — “ if any Easterner even suspected 
he had two such California cousins, he’d start 
for the Pacific coast without his breakfast ! ” 

“ Did you ever hear anything half as ami- 
able ? ” asked Silvette, laughing. 

“ I never did,” replied Diana ; “ especially 
as we’re probably his twenty-second cousins.” 

“ That distance may lend an enchantment 
to the obligations of kinship ! ” he said gayly. 

Diana looked up, grave as a youthful Japa- 
nese goddess. 

“ You don’t mean that, do you? ” 

39 


Japonette 


“ No, I don’t,” he said, reddening. “ If I 
did, the janitor ought to throw me out.” 

Silvette nodded seriously. 

“ We know you said it in joke ; but the 
only straw to float Diane’s idea is our kinship, 
Mr. Edgerton. And we grasped at it — for 
your sake.” 

“ Please cling to it for your own sakes, 
too,” he said, also very serious now ; “ it may 
become a plank to float us all. ... I realize 
the point you are straining out of kindness to 
me. If I accept shelter here for a day or two, 
I shall know very well what it costs you to 
offer it.” 

“ It doesn’t cost us anything,” interrupted 
Diana hastily. “ Silvette meant only that you 
should understand why our consciences and 
common sense sanction your remaining if we 
remain.” 

“ You must remain anyway! ” he said. 

“ So must you, cousin,” said Silvette, laugh- 
ing. “ Anyway, you’ve probably sent your 
trunks here — haven’t you ? ” 

“By jinks! I forgot that!” he exclaimed. 
I believe that racket on the stairs means that 
my trunks are arriving ! ” 

It did mean exactly that. And when Ed- 
40 


Sub Judice 


gerton went out to the landing he encoun- 
tered two expressmen staggering under the 
luggage, and, behind them, the terrified jan- 
itor who had returned, and who, on the ad- 
vent of the baggage, had hurried upstairs to 
summarily evict the illegal lodgers before Ed- 
gerton’s arrival. 

Now, at sight of Edgerton himself, the 
Irishman turned white with horror and clung 
to the banisters for support; but Edgerton 
only said pleasantly : “ Hello, Mike ! I hope 
you’ve made my cousins comfortable. I’ll be 
here for a day or two. Bring up any mail 
there may be for me, and see that the landing 
is properly dusted after this.” 

He came back to the studio intensely 
amused. 

“ I thought that guilty Irishman would 
faint on the stairs when he saw me,” he said. 
“ I merely said that I hoped he’d looked out 
for my cousins’ comfort. . . . You know,” he 
added laughingly, “I’m anything except angry 
at him.” 

Silvette rose from the table and strolled 
over toward him. 

“ Are you really glad to know us ? ” she 
asked curiously. “ We’ve heard that New 
41 


Japonette 


Yorkers are not celebrated for their enthusi- 
asm over poor relatives from the outer dark- 
ness.” 

“ New Yorkers,” he said, “ are not different 
from any other creatures segregated in a self- 
imposed and comfortable captivity. People 
who have too much of anything are spoiled to 
that extent — ignorant to that degree — selfish 
and prejudiced according to the term of their 
imprisonment. All over the world it is the 
same; the placidity of self-approval and self- 
absorption is the result of local isolation. 
We’re not stupid; we merely have so much to 
look at that we don’t care what may take 
place outside our front gate. But if anybody 
opens our gate and comes in, he’ll have no 
trouble, because he’ll be as much of a New 
Yorker as anybody really is.” 

Silvette laid her head on one side and, draw- 
ing the heavy burnished braid of hair over her 
left shoulder, rebraided the end absently. 

“ Is it,” she inquired, “ because we are 
merely attractive that you mentioned the re- 
lationship? ” 

“ I’m afraid it’s — partly that,” he admitted, 
reddening and glancing askance at Diana. 

“ Stop tormenting him ! ” said Diana. “ Pie’s 
42 


Sub Judice 


candid, anyhow. It’s very fortunate all 
around, anyway,” she added naively; though 
exactly why she considered it fortunate to 
meet a man with two dollars in his pocket and 
the legal right to evict her, she did not ex- 
plain to herself. 

Silvette, caressing her braid with deft fin- 
gers, mused aloud : “ It’s very noble of him to 
claim relationship with two poverty-stricken 
old maids from the Pacific coast. Don’t you 
think so, Diane ? ” And she glanced up with 
a bewitching smile that had in it a glint of 
malice. 

" Stop tormenting him ! ” repeated Diana. 

We’re pretty and young, and he knows it 
and we know it. What’s the use in speculat- 
ing about what he might have done if we were 
not attractive? He’s perfectly satisfied with his 
western cousins — aren’t you ? ” glancing up. 

“ Perfectly,” he said. 

Diana nodded emphatically. 

“ Do you hear, Silvie ? He says he is per- 
fectly satisfied with us, and he is a typical New 
Yorker. Therefore, we need not be at all dis- 
turbed about our capacity for entertaining 
anybody, if somebody will only offer us em- 
ployment.” 


43 


Japonette 


Silvette looked around at him. “ I’d like to 
have you see us in our afternoon gowns ; I be- 
lieve you’d really be rather proud of the re- 
lationship.” 

“ Good Lord ! ” he exclaimed, half laugh- 
ing, half annoyed ; “ I’m proud of it anyway. 
What on earth do you think a New Yorker 
is?” 

“ We’ve seen some ” said Diana meaningly. 
“ Several came here in answer to our adver- 
tisement. But we knew, of course, that your 
type existed, too.” 

“Have you been — annoyed?” 

Silvette laughed. “ One man, of very red 
complexion, inquired if Diana would act as his 
housekeeper. He had several country places* 
he said.” 

“ There was a woman came ; we didn’t care 
for her,” added Diana thoughtfully. Then, 
lifting her head, she looked at Edgerton with 
a gaze so pure and sweet, so exquisitely can- 
did, that he felt his heart stop for a moment. 
Then the blood mounted to his face — to the 
roots of his hair. 

“ Take me into your partnership,” he said 
impulsively ; “ will you ? ” 

“ What ! ” 


44 


Sub Judice 


“ Can you ? Is it all right ? ” 

“ I don’t know what you mean ! ” said 
Diana. 

“ Why couldn’t I help entertain week-ends 
with you ? ” 

The proposition seemed to astound them all, 
even the young fellow who had made it. 

For a moment they all stood silent; then, 
pursuing his own impulsive idea toward a 
plausible conclusion, he said : “ Why not, 
after all? It would make a better com- 
bination than two young girls alone. I’ve 
clothes — two trunks in there, two more at 
the customs — London made and duty paid! 
. . . Why not ? It’s a good combination. The 
more I think of it the better I like it ! ” 

He began to pace to and fro nervously. 

“ I know a lot of people — the right kind. 
I’m not ashamed to ask them to employ me. 
There is no reason why a Tennant or an Ed- 

gerton should not be in their houses ” 

“ But,” said Silvette quietly, “ the right sort 
of people, as you call them, have no need of 
asking anybody to aid them in entertaining. 
It is very generous of you, Mr. Edgerton, but 
don’t you see that services of our kind will 
be accepted only by — by newcomers, newly 

45 


Japonette 


wealthy people — those whose circle is small 
and not very select/' 

“Yes, that is so,” he said so forlornly that 
Diana watched him curiously, and a delicate 
color came into her cheeks as he looked up 
again, eager, radiant. 

“ That’s true,” he repeated ; “ but if I can’t 
do anything in that way for us among the 
right sort, at least the other kind will have 
a man to reckon with ” — he glanced at 
Diana grimly now — “ when they inquire 
about housekeepers, and when women whom 
you do not care for reply to your advertise- 
ments.” 

“ That is rather a nice thing to say,” ob- 
served Silvette, looking at him out of her 
dark eyes. “ But we know — a number of 
things. We are not a bit afraid, and — you 
would not care to — endure the kind of people 
likely to employ us.” 

“ I can endure what you can. I’d like to do 
it. . . . Would you rather not have me?” 

“ Why, I — it would be delightful — charm- 
ing — but we had not even dreamed of such a 
thing.” 

He turned to Diana. “ Will you let me 
try?” 

46 


Sub Judice 


She said, confused : “ I hadn’t thought of 
such a thing. . . . Could it be done ? ” 

“ Why not ? ” asked Silvette, immensely in- 
terested. “ When people come, we can say, 
‘ We and our cousin, Mr. Edgerton, are as- 
sociated as social entertainers.’ ” 

“ Oh, if you put it that way they’ll think he 
does Punch and Judy and we dance queer 
dances ! ” exclaimed Diana in consternation. 

Edgerton threw back his head and laughed, 
utterly unable to control his merriment, and 
Silvette caught the infection, and her clear, 
delicious laughter filled the sunny studio. She 
showed her white teeth when she laughed. 

“ Oh, it is perfectly horrid of me to think 
of such a thing, but I can’t help thinking of 
three trained acrobats,” said Silvette, breath- 
less. " Does it seem funny for three of us to 
be associated in entertaining guests ? Does it, 
Mr. Edgerton? Or am I only frivolous?” 

After their laughter had ceased, and their 
breath had returned, he said : “ Wherever we 
go — whoever employs us — the other guests 
will suppose us to be guests, too. Only the 
guilty millionaire from outer darkness with a 
new house on Fifth Avenue and a newer one 
in the country will know.” 

47 


Japonette 


Silvette said : “ Do you realize that it is per- 
fectly dear of you to propose such a thing? ” 

Diana said nothing. 

Silvette went on : “I know perfectly well 
— and you know, too — that your name would 
be worth almost anything to the wealthy snob 
who employs us.” 

Diana said nothing. 

“ To have an Edgerton as a guest would 
elevate our prospective employer to the sev- 
enth heaven of snobbery,” said Silvette. “ Di- 
ane and I would shine serenely in the reflected 
relationship ” 

“ Don’t make fun of me,” he said. 

“ Why, I’m not. I really mean it. My in- 
stincts have been so warped and materialized 
and commercialized that here I am seriously 
proposing to make family capital out of the 
name of one branch of the family. I really 
do mean it, Mr. Edgerton.” 

“ No,” said Diana quietly. 

He turned toward her. 

“ Do you vote against me?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Don’t, please,” he said, looking at her. 

She met his eye calmly for a moment, then 
looked at her sister. 


48 


Sub Judice 


“Do you think it a decent thing to do?” 
she asked ; “ our making plans to live on Mr. 
Edgerton ? ” 

“ Good heavens ! ” he said impatiently, 
“ my being part of a family combination isn’t 
going to alter your success in any way.” 

“ Your name makes it sure.” 

“ Your youth and beauty and good breed- 
ing make it sure. My name has nothing to 
do with it.” 

“ Then why do you propose it? ” 

He laughed. “ Because I’ve got to make a 
living, too.” 

“ There are less humiliating ways of mak- 
ing a living — for you,” said Diana steadily. 

He looked first at Silvette, then at her, de- 
liberately, and his face altered. 

“ I want to look out for you,” he said, “ and 
that’s the plain truth.” 

“ That,” observed Silvette, “ is the nicest 
thing he’s said yet, Diane.” She walked up to 
him and stood serenely inspecting him. 

“ I vote for you. Diane, let’s admit him. 
We’re a poverty-stricken family, and we ought 
to combine. Besides, I like him to feel the 
way he does about us — not that it’s necessary, 
of course — but it’s — pleasant.” 

49 


Japonette 


“ I haven’t any cash,” said Edgerton, “ but 
Eve this apartment, which nobody can take 
away even if I starve ; and I’ve some very fine 
clothes. . . . Won’t you vote for me, Di- 
ana ? ” he added so naturally that neither 
seemed to notice his use of her first name. 

Silvette waited a moment, watching her sis- 
ter; then she said briskly: “ Let’s dress. We’ll 
inspect your beautiful British clothing, cousin, 
and you shall see our prettiest afternoon 
gowns. Then we can tell better how such a 
combination would look. Shall we ? ” 

Edgerton said to Diana : “ Don’t you want 
me? ” 

She replied slowly : “ I — don’t — know," 

looked up at him, straight at him, thought- 
fully. 

“ People may come at any time after two 
o’clock,” said Silvette. “ If they find you in 
flowered silk and a butterfly sash and me in a 
pigtail, they will certainly expect dances from 
us and probably Punch and Judy from our 
cousin.” 

She laughed, and extended her hand to Ed- 
gerton. 

“ I like you, cousin ; Diane does, too. When 
you’re dressed in your best, come back to the 
50 


Sub Judice 


studio and we’ll arrive at some kind of a con- 
clusion.” 

Diana nodded to him as she passed with her 
sister. The questioning gravity of her ex- 
pression reminded him of a child who has not 
yet made up its mind to like you. She wore 
the bluest eyes he had ever seen, and the most 
enchanting mouth — the unspoiled mouth of 
childhood. 

When they entered their room he went out 
by the hallway to his. 

Standing there, fumbling with tie and col- 
lar, his absent gaze followed the checkered 
sun spots moving on the wall as the curtain 
moved ; and, gradually, there in the half light, 
the blue eyes seemed to take winsome shape 
and hue, and he said aloud to himself : 

“ Anyway, somebody ought to look after 
her. . . . She can’t go roaming about like 
this.” 


CHAPTER IV 


IN LOCO PARENTIS 

B HAVED, bathed, and his person adorned 
with his most fashionable lounging suit 
for a summer afternoon, Edgerton sauntered 
out of his room and met the maid in the hall- 
way. She had returned in time to answer the 
door; evidently also she had already been en- 
lightened as to his identity, so he passed her 
with a nod and a smile, and entered the studio 
just as the door bell rang. 

Neither Silvette nor Diana had yet ap- 
peared, nor had he been instructed what to 
say to those who might call in answer to the 
advertisement. He looked up doubtfully as 
the maid announced a Mr. Rivett and a Colo- 
nel Curmew, and he stepped forward as these 
two gentlemen were ushered in. 

“ How d’you do ? ” he said pleasantly. 
“ My cousins will be in directly. I am James 
Edgerton 3d.” 


52 


In Loco Parentis 


Colonel Curmew, a jaunty gentleman of less 
than middle height and age, looked at him out 
of a pair of eyes slightly inclined to pop. He 
appeared to be rather a good-looking man at 
first glance, with a perceptible military cut 
which, however, seemed to threaten something 
akin to a strut. He didn’t exactly strut when 
he stepped, but he held himself very erect — 
the more so perhaps because he seemed to 
lack something else — perhaps height. 

He knew Edgerton perfectly well by sight 
and reputation ; and when he sat down he was 
still looking at him out of his full, pale eyes. 

Mr. Rivett also seated himself — a little man 
with a walrus mustache who somehow looked 
as though, under his loosely cut clothes, his 
slight physique was steel framed. 

He put on his glasses and looked at Edger- 
ton out of two little unwinking eyes which 
reminded the young fellow of holes burned in 
a blanket. 

“ I came,” he said cautiously, “ in answer 
to a somewhat unusual advertisement.” 

“ Yes,” said Edgerton pleasantly, “ we ad- 
vertised.” 

“If I recollect,” continued Mr. Rivett, 
“you did not figure in the advertisement.” 

53 


Japonette 


“No,” replied Edgerton, smiling; “my 
cousins possess the family talents ; I’m super- 
numerary — merely thrown in. My services 
are not worth very much ; I ride and shoot, of 
course, and all that, but I don’t talk very well 
and my dancing is the limit.” 

“ I see.” 

Edgerton nodded serenely. 

Colonel Curmew passed a carefully gloved 
hand over his trimly curled military mustache. 
Edgerton glanced at him and wondered just 
what was the matter with his face, which 
ought to have been good-looking. Perhaps 
the short, closely cropped side whiskers ex- 
tending to the lobes of the ears slightly cheap- 
ened the mustache, and vulgarized the man 
a little. 

Colonel Curmew said : 

“ I have never had the honor of knowing 
you, Mr. Edgerton, but your name and face 
are very familiar to me on Fifth Avenue.” 

“ My people have lived on Fifth Avenue 
for— some time,” replied the young fellow, 
smiling ; and caught Mr. Rivett’s burnt-brown 
gaze fixed steadily upon him. 

“ Everybody,” said Colonel Curmew, sit- 
ting very erect, but not exactly swaggering, 

54 


In Loco Parentis 


“ everybody in town regretted to hear of your 
family’s financial misfortune, Mr. Edgerton.” 

“ It’s very good of them to regret it. Nat- 
urally, also, that unexpected catastrophe ex- 
plains my cousins’ desire for employment as 
well as my own.” 

“ I see,” said Mr. Rivett, never taking his 
eyes off Edgerton. 

There was a pause ; Colonel Curmew 
stroked his mustache and stared around at the 
tapestries and pictures. He evidently realized 
what they might bring at auction. 

“ You are a lover of the antique, sir,” he 
observed. 

“ Oh, I don’t exactly love it. These things 
belonged to my uncle. The museum gets them 
ultimately.” 

“Ah! a case of the dead hand?” 

“ Mort main,” nodded the young man in- 
differently. 

“ I see,” said Mr. Rivett ; and suddenly it 
occurred to Edgerton that this explanation 
was, perhaps, one of the unuttered questions 
with which Mr. Rivett’s bony countenance 
seemed crowded. But the little man had not 
yet asked a single one; and it may have been 
in response to the steady, silent interrogation 

55 


Japonette 


of those gimlet eyes that Edgerton was moved 
to further explanation. 

“ My cousins are Californians; I am a New 
Yorker, as you know. We have combined 
forces from economical and family motives. 
It is necessary that we find employment,, 
so — ” and he smiled at Mr. Rivett — “ we have 
asked for it.” 

Mr. Rivett sat impassive behind his big, 
round spectacles. His walrus mustache pre- 
vented anybody from seeing his mouth; his 
eyes now resembled two little charred holes. 
It was utterly impossible to divine what he 
might be thinking about, or even whether he 
was doing anything at all except waiting. 
Somehow, it occurred to Edgerton that Mr. 
Rivett had done a great deal of waiting in his 
career. 

Colonel Curmew had now risen, and was 
strolling about examining the antiquities when 
the folding doors slid back and Silvette and 
Diana came into the studio. 

Edgerton rose and presented Mr. Rivett 
and the colonel ; the young girls spoke to them 
with quiet self-possession, and presently every- 
body was again seated. Except for the colo- 
nel, the attitude of everybody suggested a busi- 
56 


In Loco Parentis 


ness gathering of people pleasantly receptive 
to any business proposition, but that jaunty 
warrior’s pale eyes popped and his smile was 
of the sort termed “ killing ” ; and he curled 
his mustache continually with caressing fin- 
gers, and presently shot his cuffs. 

Mr. Rivett broke the silence somewhat 
abruptly : 

“ As far as I am concerned, the matter is 
settled.” 

There was another silence; then Silvette 
ventured : “ I beg your pardon. I don’t think 
we understood.” 

“ I say, as far as I am concerned, the mat- 
ter is settled,” repeated Mr. Rivett. “ I ask 
no further information regarding these young 
ladies ” — turning slightly toward Edgerton — 
“ nor about you, sir. I am satisfied, and Mrs. 
Rivett will be.” 

Diana and Silvette seemed surprised; Ed- 
gerton wore a preoccupied expression, his eyes 
narrowing on the big eyeglasses of Mr. Rivett 
which reflected the studio window on their 
convex surface. 

“ About myself,” continued Mr. Rivett with 
more abruptness, “ I have a house in New 
York, which is closed, and one or two others ; 
57 


Japonette 


one in particular where my family is living 
— my wife, son, and daughter. It’s called 
Adriutha Lodge; I don’t know why — my wife 
named it. It’s comfortable and big enough 
to entertain in.” 

He looked at Silvette without a particle of 
expression in his face. 

“ I would like you — both of you young 
ladies — and your cousin, Mr. Edgerton, to help 
us entertain. If we knew how to entertain 
successfully we wouldn’t ask anybody to show 
us how. It is better to be plain about it. We 
are plain folk from a small town in the West. 
We know very few people ; we mean to know 
more. I’ve come to this city to remain ; I 
want to make as few mistakes as possible 
socially. What I wish you to do is to help me 
out. Will you ? ” 

After a moment Diana asked : “ Where is 
Adriutha Lodge?” 

“ In the Berkshires. Will you come ? ” 

She glanced at the colonel, but he was 
staring so fixedly at her that she looked 
away. 

“ We might consider it,” said Silvette, turn- 
ing toward Edgerton. 

“ Couldn’t you consider it at once ? ” asked 

58 


In Loco Parentis 


Mr. Rivett. Evidently this little man with 
his glasses and his protuberant mustache had 
his own methods of accelerating business. 

“ You have mentioned no terms,” said Ed- 
gerton. 

“ Oh ! Am I to mention them ? I expected 
you had your own ideas on that subject. Very 
well, then.” And the offer he made left them 
silent and a little shy. It seemed too much. 

Edgerton said laughingly to Diana: 

“ Suppose we consult in your room — if Mr. 
Rivett doesn’t mind our withdrawing for a 
moment.” 

“ Go ahead,” nodded Rivett energetically ; 
“ that’s exactly what I want — quick action. I 
like quick results.” 

So Silvette and Diana and Edgerton rose 
and entered the room in single file, closing be- 
hind them the folding doors. 

“ Well ! ” breathed Diana, sitting down on 
the edge of the bed, “ did you ever before see 
a man of that kind ? ” 

Silvette turned to Edgerton. “ What do 
you think of him, cousin? ” 

“ Why, I rather like that dried-up little 
chip,” he said. “ He’s about the grade of citi- 
zen we expected.” 


59 


Japonette 


“We?” repeated Diana meaningly; “do 
you expect to go with us ? ” 

“ Are you going to force me out of this per- 
fectly good combination, Diana?” 

The girl sat silent on the bed’s edge regard- 
ing him, but not answering. 

“ There’s one thing which ought to be set- 
tled now,” observed Silvette; “if our cousin, 
Mr. Edgerton, is to remain in this firm, we’ve 
got to call him Jim, if only for appearance’ 
sake. Otherwise people would chatter.” 

“ Jim ? ” repeated Diana ; “ very well, it 
doesn’t embarrass me to call him Jim — or Tom 
or Bill, for that matter,” she added indiffer- 
ently. 

“ It doesn’t worry me, either,” said Edger- 
ton ; “ call me anything but early.” 

“ Such a poor joke ! ” said Silvette ; “ if we 
ever call you, cousin, it will be a very late 
affair — and with nothing under a full house.” 

“ Poker ! — and you ! What an incredible 
combination ! ” he said. 

Diana interrupted coolly: “If you please, 
Mr. Edgerton, what is your valuable and 
masculine opinion concerning this munificent 
offer for the summer ? ” And she let her 
glance rest slowly and sideways on her sister. 
60 


In Loco Parentis 


“ Take it,” he said ; “ it’s a good offer.” 

“Is that your vote?” inquired Silvette. 

“ Have I a vote ? ” he asked of Diana ; but 
she merely said : “ I say we try the Rivetts of 
Adriutha. That is my vote.” 

“ Then — so do I say so,” nodded Silvette.. 
“Is it settled?” 

Diana looked up at Edgerton. 

“ Are you really expecting to come with 
us?” 

“If you will let me.” 

She remained a moment in thought, then 
sprang lightly to her feet. 

“ Who is going to be our spokesman?” she 
asked; “you, sister?” 

“ Jim,” said Silvette, tranquilly leading the 
way. “ It looks better, I think.” 

So Edgerton politely informed Mr. Rivett 
of their unanimous decision, and that little 
man got briskly to his feet. 

“ I’m satisfied,” he said. “ Come to Adriu- 
tha as soon as you are ready. Bring all the 
luggage you want to bring; there’s plenty of 
room. Don't bring any servants ; there are 
more than enough there now. My wife and 
I receive you as guests; my son and daughter 
are about your ages; nobody can prophesy 
61 


Japonette 


what you’ll think of them or they of you. . . . 
Colonel — if you are ready. . . . Good-by, 
ma’am,” to Silvette, offering a dry little hand ; 
and he took his leave of Diana and of Edger- 
ton, and pulled the colonel unceremoniously 
out of a most elegant attitude, ruining a 
jaunty bow which he had not intended to fin- 
ish so abruptly. 

“ Well,” exclaimed Silvette with a sigh and 
a laugh as the door closed, “ it’s settled ! Let’s 
forget it. . . . What do you think of our 
gowns, cousin James ? ” 

“ Corking,” he replied ; “ but my cousin 
Diana was very fetching in her Japanese dress 
this morning.” 

“ That’s like a man ! ” observed Diana. “ I 
was a mess, Silvie — with two ragged peonies 
over my ears and those old straw sandals of 
yours ” 

“ You were a vision of Japanese fairyland,” 
he insisted. “ I may be weak-minded, but I 
simply cannot get that vision of you out of 
my head.” 

“ Try some tea,” as the maid brought it; 
“ weak tea and feeble intellects agree.” 

“ Oh, I’ll try tea or anything else, but if you 
think I’m likely to forget the first moment I 
62 


In Loco Parentis 


ever saw you — a slender, Japanese shadow 
shape against the sun ! — ethereal, vaguely 
tinted, exquisite ” 

“ You are a poet, Jim,” said Silvette ad- 
miringly. “ I read one of your rhymes in 
Life once, and didn’t think so.” 

“ Diana made me a poet. If you’d seen her 
as she came stealing across the window, which 
was all glittering like a Japanese sunburst, 
you’d have become a poet, too ! ” He began to 
laugh. “ I even created a name for you, 
Diana; it came to me — was already on my 
lips ” 

“ What name ? ” she asked, looking com- 
posedly at him. 

“ Japonette ! . . . 1 never before heard such 
a name. I don’t believe there ever was such 
a name before it suddenly twitched at my lips 
for utterance! Japonette!” 

“ Why didn’t you utter it if you were so 
enchanted with your discovery ? ” 

“ Because you seemed to be sufficiently 
scared as it was.” 

She shrugged, and handed him his tea. 
“Japonette,” she repeated reflectively; “I 
don’t know whether or not I care for it. It 
sounds frivolous.” 


63 


Japonette 


“ Which you are not ! ” 

She lifted her blue eyes to his. 

“ You think I am,” she said. 

“ No, I don’t.” 

“ You knozu I am,” she said, and presented 
herself with a small tea cake. Into it she bit 
once ; then raised her eyes, watching her sister 
manipulating the alcohol lamp. 

“ Do you suppose,” she said, “ that we’ll 
ever have the slightest personal interest in 
these Rivett people ? ” 

“ Probably not,” said her sister. “ What of 
it ? I wonder whether that colonel is likely to 
figure as a guest.” 

Diana shrugged again. “ Figure ! He 
seems to be all figure. I thought him rather 
odious.” 

“ Did you ? He seemed anxious to be agree- 
able. Who is he, cousin Jim? ” 

“ I don’t know. . . . Perhaps I may have 
heard of him — a militia colonel of some kind, 
I don’t remember. He’s probably a decent 
sort; I rather like him.” 

“ I wonder,” said Diana reflectively, 
“ whether you are anything of a snob?” 

Edgerton reddened, then sat still looking at 
her. 


64 


In Loco Parentis 


“ I was going to resent that,” he said after 
a moment, “ but I can’t ; because what you 
just said set me thinking.” 

“Are you unaccustomed to thinking?” she 
asked too innocently ; and he reddened 
again. 

“ Stop tormenting him,” said Silvette, pour- 
ing herself more tea. “ You’re a tease, Di- 
ane.” 

“ You both seem a little in that way,” he 
suggested; “you jeer at me and then look 
pained, and tell each other to stop.” 

“ We’re too intelligent,” said Silvette 
calmly ; “ that’s the trouble with us ; and when, 
by degrees, we add a little more experience to 
our intelligence we’ll be either exceedingly un- 
popular or — successfully married.” 

“ Why those terrible alternatives ? ” he 
asked, laughing. 

“ Because the man who is able to endure 
us will probably be worth the bother of mar- 
rying — when we’ve finished dissecting him. 
We don’t know just how to dissect men yet, 
but we’re rapidly learning. It’s only a matter 
of practice and experience.” 

He laughed again, and so did Silvette, 
but Diana scarcely smiled, lying back in her 

65 


Japonette 


velvet armchair and watching Edgerton and 
her sister alternately with grave, incurious 
eyes. 

“ How old are you, anyway ? ” he said, look- 
ing straight at her. 

“ Twenty-seven,” she answered calmly. 
“ Don’t jump, please.” 

“ What ! ” he exclaimed incredulously. 

“ I look about nineteen, don’t I ? ” 

“ Certainly you do — about eighteen ! ” 

“Well, I am twenty-seven; Silvette is 
twenty-five. Don’t bother with compliments. ’ 

“ Good Lord ! Are you the elder ? ” 

“ Tread lightly there,” cautioned Silvette, 
amused, “ or you’ll presently involve your- 
self with two indignant spinsters. You’ve 
behaved very cleverly. Let well enough 
alone.” 

“ If you hadn’t told me,” he began, aston- 
ished, “ I’d have taken Silvette for nineteen 
and you for eighteen. I — well, I simply can’t 
realize it.” 

“How old may you be, cousin?” inquired 
Silvette with a malicious sweetness impossible 
to describe. 

“ I’m thirty-two,” he said. 

“We thought you less,” remarked Diana; 

66 


In Loco Parentis 


then she ventured to glance at him, and the 
enchanting smile broke suddenly from her lips 
and eyes. 

“ Don’t you know we do like you, cousin 
James, or we wouldn’t torment you?” said 
Silvette, laughing. 

“ A woman at twenty-seven is centuries 
older than a man at thirty,” added Diana, 
“ except, of course, in some things. Theoret- 
ically, Silvie and I are highly instructed ; 
practically, the man of thirty is more specific- 
ally intelligent, which is no compliment to the 
man of thirty.” 

Edgerton, still astonished, sat back in his 
chair, considering. 

“ Do you know,” he said, “ I never sus- 
pected I had two such relatives in the world, 
who wear the appearance of debutantes with 
an assurance that convinces until their wit and 
wisdom convict them. Where were you edu- 
cated, anyway ? ” 

“ In a southern boarding school and in a 
western university. After that, Silvette 
studied law and was admitted to the bar. I 
am entitled to practice medicine,” she added 
demurely. “ Does that scare you?” 

“ Do you think it has spoiled us ? ” asked 

67 


Japonette 


Silvette so naively that he made no attempt to 
control his laughter. 

“ Why on earth don’t you do those two 
things?” he managed to ask at last. “If 
you’re entitled to exercise professions, why 
don’t you ? ” 

“We only studied out of curiosity,” ex- 
plained Diana. “We never intended to follow 
it up. Of course, we expected to remain al- 
ways in pleasant financial circumstances.” 

“ Anyway,” added Silvette, “ it’s too late 
now to sit in an office and wait for clients and 
patients. Besides, it’s a stufify life. We dance 
better, and we decorate a drawing-room to 
more advantage than an office building.” 

“ You have thoroughly scared me,” he said, 
looking at them admiringly. 

Diana glanced up, then flushed. 

“ I was afraid for a moment that you meant 
it,” she said. 

“ I do. What was it you asked me a few 
moments ago — whether or not I was some- 
thing of a snob? And I was about to resent 
it — politely, of course — when it occurred to 
me that there was, after all, no more finished 
snob than the man who is so convinced of his 
own position that he can afford to like every- 
68 


In Loco Parentis 


body; and I told you I liked that militia gen- 
tleman. I really didn’t; I thought him the 
limit. . . . Diana, you seem to be a sort of 
truth compeller.” 

“ I’m a liar, occasionally — to speak with ac- 
curacy instead of elegance,” said Diana 
frankly. “ I’ve managed to convey to you an 
idea that I am indifferent to your joining the 
firm of Tennant and Tennant. As a matter 
of fact, I’m flattered and happy. It’s my con- 
science that protests.” 

“ Your— what?” 

“ Conscience. Never mind — you won’t un- 
derstand, and I won’t tell you. . . . After all, 
you are thirty-two, even if you happen to be 
an Edgerton.” 

“ Are you jeering at me? ” 

“ No, I am not. I’m flattered because you 
wear a distinguished name ; I’m happy because 
I’m entirely inclined to like you. In fact, I’m 
a kind of a happy, little snob myself. There! 
we’re all tarred with the same snobbish brush, 
cousin. Shall we take off our masks for a 
while and cool our faces ? ” 

She rose with a gay little laugh and a be- 
witching gesture as though sweeping from her 
face an invisible vizard. 

69 


Japonette 


“ Behold me as I am, cousin ! Just what 
you have already divined me, with your eyes 
too humorous and too wise for a man of thirty 
— frivolous, feminine, not insensible to flat- 
tery, wise only in theory, a novice in prac- 
tice ” 

She hesitated, looking at him, the bright 
color in her cheeks. 

“ What silenced and incensed me was that 
you divined it. I would have liked to have 
played a part with you vis-a-vis ” 

“ You’re playing it now,” observed Silvette. 
“ Jim doesn’t know what you are now ; even 
I have doubts.” 

Diana laughed deliciously. 

“Do I puzzle you, cousin?” 

“ Are you trying to ? ” 

“ Of course.” 

“ Well, you’ve succeeded. You’re perfectly 
right, Silvette ; I don’t know anything about 
her now. Are there any more roles you can 
assume, Japonette?” 

“ Many, monsieur. One of them is Japo- 
nette, if I choose.” 

“ Play it,” he said, “ if you ever want to tie 
me to your Obi.” 

“ You behave,” observed Silvette tranquilly, 
70 


In Loco Parentis 


u like two rather ordinary young persons 
flirting.” 

“ We are,” nodded Diana, “ but it won’t 
last, Silvie. It’s only my kimono and his 
thirty-odd years and the unconventionality 
that attracts him.” She strolled about airily 
waving her fan. “ Not that I mind being 
picked up ” 

“ Di ! You’ll give him a perfectly horrid 
impression of yourself ! ” 

“ Why, he knows I didn’t mind it. It’s past 
helping now.” 

“ How can a man ‘ pick up,’ as you so dis- 
gustingly put it, his own cousin ? ” 

“ That was a triumph, wasn’t it, Jim? ’’ she 
asked innocently. “ It remained for an Ed- 
gerton to accomplish the weird and impos- 
sible ; but an Edgerton can do anything in New 
York — n’est ce pas? Bien, sure! Sure, 
Mike ! ” 

“ Diana!” 

“Dearest, I feel slangy; and cousin James 
is so thoroughly a man of the world that he 
doesn’t care. He wouldn’t care what I did. 
I could perform a pas seul or a flip-flap or a 
cart wheel, and he wouldn’t care. It’s done in 
the best circles here, isn’t it, cousin ? ” 

7 1 


Japonette 


“ Frequently,” he said gravely, “ varied oc- 
casionally by voloplaning down the ban- 
isters.” 

She looked about her wistfully. 

“ There are no banisters here. Perhaps 
there are at the Rivetts’. Do you think it 
would entertain his guests? You know we are 
employed for that purpose.” 

“ You and I ought to practice some acro- 
batic turns,” he suggested. “ Do you think 
you could learn to throw a double somersault 
standing on my shoulders ? ” 

“ I can try ” 

“ Di ! what on earth are you talking about ! ” 
said Silvette, turning from the piano to en- 
counter their unrestrained laughter. 

“ Oh, dear,” said Diana, “ I didn’t know I 
could ever be silly again. I thought that los- 
ing all our money a year ago had frightened 
it out of me; but it’s there, cousin Jim — the 
same frivolity which you instantly discovered 
in me, and which the Rivetts will probably 
and properly quench. . . . Silvie, this studio 
floor is delightfully waxed. . . . Cousin, do 
you dance ? ” 

“ Rottenly.” 

“ Never mind. . . . Silvie, dear — one little 

72 


In Loco Parentis 


waltz, please? Please f Thank you. Pull 
away that rug, cousin. Are you ready ? ” 

She laid her arm on his, her hand in his; 
Silvette, playing, turned her head to watch 
them. 

“ He is a rotten dancer,” she said criti- 
cally. 

“ I can’t help that,” said Diana ; “ it was 
the time and the hour. I needed it! . . . Jim, 
don’t step on my toe, please, and don’t think 
of stopping. You do well enough, really, you 
do. ... No man who counts dances like a 
Turveydrop. ... We use dancing men for 
dancing purposes only. ... Of course you 
are flattered; I meant to flaiter you, so you 
wouldn’t be horrid enough to stop. . . . 
Please finish glaring at me; you are really 
giving me a great deal of pleasure.” 

“ I begin to wonder whether I was not cre- 
ated for that, Japonette.” 

“To amuse me? Unintentionally? per- 
haps.” 

“ So that you notice me at all, it doesn’t 
matter,” he said under his breath. 

“ Goodness ! what meekness ! Only that 
you’re a typical man and don’t mean it, I’d 
hate you for it. ... A meek man — from him, 

73 


Japonette 


good Lord, deliver us ! . . . No, cousin, there 
is that in your eye which — and in your general 
make-up ” 

“ What?” 

“ Oh, I don’t know — thirty-odd masculine 
years — very masculine ! — or I’d not be dancing 
with you, or I’d not be in this house at this 
moment; or, rather, you wouldn’t. Stop- 
mincing along in a horrid sort of self-satisfied 
prance ! . . . And don’t hop, either ! Are 
you tiring?” 

“ No,” he said bravely. 

“ I’ll let you go in a moment, before you 
swoon and I have to drag you to a chair. . . . 
You dance well enough. I like it, really . . . 
and — thank you very much indeed ! ” 

They parted, breathless. She stood a mo- 
ment waving her fan against her bright cheeks 
and touching her hair with deft fingers. He 
extracted a handkerchief from his sleeve and 
used it frankly. 

“ It’s hot in here,” he said; “ show me your 
roof garden.” 

“ Silvette,” she called over her shoulder, 
“ will you come up to the roof? ” 

Silvette nodded and continued playing 
an air from “ Armide ” ; and they waited for 

74 


In Loco Parentis 


her a moment, then went out into the hallway 
and up to the roof. 

“ The garden of a thousand delights ! ” she 
said with a sweep of her hand and a curtsey. 
“ The Japanese fairy, Japonette, welcomes the 
true prophet of her frivolity.” 

He looked around at the flowers in pots — 
geraniums, verbenas, fuchsias, heliotrope — 
homely, old-fashioned blossoms. 

“ I bought them from a peddler ; I stopped 
his wagon in the street and made him carry 
them up here. They only cost two dollars ; 
and I was economical at the market,” she ex- 
plained. 

He glanced up at the awning gay with yel- 
low and white stripes. 

“ Macy’s,” she admitted guiltily ; “ I’ll starve 
you at dinner to-night to pay for it.” 

He looked at her rather queerly, she 
thought. 

“ There are things I’d starve for — and 
people.” 

“ And awnings, cousin ? ” 

“ Yours.” 

“ That’s very nice and gallant and obvious,” 
she said in such a tormenting tone that he 
broke out almost impatiently : 

75 


Japonette 


“ Japonette, can’t you ever take me se- 
riously ? ” 

“ I hope not, cousin.” 

For an instant the smile remained stamped 
on their lips; then the slight strain became 
perceptible, a moment only, for she turned 
lightly away and seated herself on the edge of 
a big hanging seat. 

“ More Macy,” she nodded ruefully. “We’ll 
all have to fast to-morrow. ... You may sit 
here, too, if you wish.” 

A family of starlings were nesting in 
the cornices of the roof across the way, 
and the two young people watched the 
old birds for a while flying to the park 
and returning with food for their invisible 
young. 

“ Horrid, isn’t it ? ” observed Diana. “ But 
that’s the way of things. No sooner are you 
married and happy than — zip ! the scene 
changes, and you turn into a wretched pur- 
veyor of nourishment for the next generation. 
Carpe diem ! ” 

“ Cede Deo ! It’s probably good fun,” com- 
mented Edgerton. 

“ What? Slaving for others just when you 
are all ready for real happiness?” 

76 


In Loco Parentis 


“ That's happiness, or nobody would do it 
— not even those birds.” 

“ It’s instinct ! ” 

“ Maybe with birds. Instincts are all right 
for birds, but we humans are usually arrested 
when we follow our instincts.” 

She laughed. “ That is true ; it’s neither 
instinct nor happiness that makes us slaves to 
babies — it’s duty.” 

“If that were all it is,” he said, “ the state 
would be nourishing the majority of infants. 
No; it’s probably fun, Diana. That’s the only 
possible explanation.” 

She shrugged her dainty shoulders and 
looked at the westering sun above Staten Is- 
land ; and in the gesture she seemed, in panto- 
mime, to discard all feminine duties, cares, 
and responsibilities forever. Then as she 
rested there, cheek on hand, her blue eyes 
grew vaguer. 

“ I am glad you came into our lives,” she 
said ; “ I mean it this time.” 

“ I am glad, too,” he said seriously. 

“ You are now ; I can see that. . . . How 
soon will you be sorry ? ” 

“ Why?” 

She turned toward him. 

77 


Japonette 


“ How soon will the novelty tire you ? ” 

" I have not considered you as a novelty.” 

“ But I am ; I’Tn a mechanical toy. My 
paint soon comes off, cousin.” 

“ You’re my own kin. There’s no novelty, 
as you call it, in kinship, nothing evanescent.” 

She said : “ Do you really and deliberately 
desire to stand by that extremely tenuous and 
attenuated tie? An attitude of that sort en- 
tails duties. You may have much to overlook 
in us — even much to forgive. Are you aware 
of your responsibilities?” 

“ I assumed them when I asked to be ad- 
mitted to your partnership.” 

“ Why did you ask to join? ” 

“ The real reason ? ” 

She hesitated, looking at him. 

“ Yes, the real one.” 

“ You.” 

“ What exactly do you mean by that an- 
swer ? ” 

“ I don’t know, myself, Japonette,” he said 
laughingly ; “ I’ve tried to analyze it, too. The 
instinct of relationship may have counted.” 

“ I hope it did,” said she. 

“ I hope so. God knows, and men are self- 
ish. . . . And that counted, too.” 

78 


In Loco Parentis 


“What?” . 

“ Selfishness.” 

“ I don’t believe there is very much in you.” 

“ That is where your heart is still a child’s 
heart, Japonette.” 

“ Oh, I’m no altruist, but there’s selfishness 
and selfishness. . . . What were we talking 
about? Oh! why you desired to join ” 

“ No, we got past that.” 

“ Oh, yes ; well, then, you say it was be- 
cause of me. Why?” 

“ I told you I didn’t know exactly why ; but 
the root of it all was you. . . . And when you 
told me about some people who had come 
here — that fellow who spoke about a house- 
keeper ” 

“Jim Edgerton!” 

“ What ! ” 

“ I believe — but you can’t be as nice as that ! 
You simply can’t!” 

“ Oh, I’m not nice,” he protested, redden- 
ing ; but she interrupted : 

“ You are! I certainly believe you thought 
that Silvie and I required somebody masculine 
in our vicinity — to throw the housekeeping 
man downstairs, for example. Did you ? ” 

“ No. I only ” 


79 


Japonette 


“Did you?” 

“ Of course not.” 

“ Do you know,” she said seriously, “ you’re 
a perfect dear in one way, and I don’t know 
what you are in others. Now be flattered, for 
that makes you interesting. And you know 
it’s all up with a woman who finds a man in- 
teresting.” 

She was laughing at him now, and he 
scarcely knew how to take what she said ex- 
cept to take it with a grin. 

“ You’re a terrible torment, Diana,” he said. 
“ My value in my own estimation, since I’ve 
known you, has fluctuated between a dollar 
and a half and thirty cents.” 

“ You said you had two dollars ! I believe 
you’re one of these wealthy men who are al- 
ways singing poor ! ” 

“ How many other kinds of things do you 
think I am ? ” he asked resignedly. 

“ I don’t know. I think I’ll amuse myself 
by finding out.” 

“ Meanwhile,” he said, smiling, “ remember 
I am always what I was when I first set eyes 
on you — no! — the next second after I had 
seen you.” 

“ A lightning change, cousin ? ” 

8o 


In Loco Parentis 


“ Like lightning, Diana.” 

“The lightning of the gods?” 

“ Diana’s own shaft. . . . ‘ The sun shall 
not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night,’ 
but I stand betwixt the rising sun of Japan 
and — you, Diana. Somebody’s shot me, that’s 
all.” 

“ You are perfectly delightful, but do you 
realize that I’m dissecting you all the while?” 

“ You once said ” 

“ Never mind that,” she interrupted hastily; 
and blushed until it infuriated her to calm- 
ness. And to heal the sting with the cause 
of it she said : 

“ You’re perfectly right, cousin ; any man 
who can endure our scalpel will be worth 
seizing and dragging to the parson. But — 
you are perfectly safe for a while. It takes 
a lifetime to properly dissect a man of your 
sort. I’ll be eighty before I make up my mind 
about you.” 

“ Eighty years is not beyond the statute of 
limitations.” 

“ You’d marry me at eighty ! Do you know 
you’re beginning to trouble me? I told you I 
was thoroughly feminine, and susceptible to 
flattery. I am ; it’s too bad I’m so intelligent 
8l 


Japonette 


that I’ve really got to satisfy that intelligence 
by spending years and years in dissecting you. 
Otherwise, I’d run away with you now.” 

“ In your Japanese silks and little straw 
sandals ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, if you were sentimental enough 
to insist.” 

“ I would.” 

She shrugged. “ I knew you were a dream- 
er — captivated by a vision. Suppose you had 
to see me pinning on store curls ? ” 

“ I’d help pin ’em.” 

“ Well, there are plenty of other things to 
disillusion you. I adore onions.” 

“ So do I,” he said. 

They laughed together. 

She was near enough for him to be aware 
of the faint scent of her breath, or it may 
have been a fragrance from her gown which 
stirred slightly in the evening breeze, or the 
delicate fresh perfume of her hair and skin 
— something indefinable, some exquisite ema- 
nation of youth which had stolen subtly into 
his senses — something of her, and as distinctly 
and inviolably hers as the occult atmosphere 
of a virgin planet. 

“ Cousin,” she said, “ I thought we were to 
82 


In Loco Parentis 


remove our masks in the family circle. They 
seem to be on as closely as ever.” 

He looked at her a moment. 

“We never will remove them,” he said. 

“Never?” 

“ Never, Japonette.” 

“ Why not?” 

“ Because, for example, in my case I want 
you to believe me everything I’d like to be. 
I know what I am. All people know what 
they are. . . . Does anybody ever really un- 
mask? . . . Could they if they wished to? 
There would be only another mask beneath. 

. . . We can’t ever get rid of masks. ... I 
don’t care how hard we try, how honestly we 
try, how intimate two people become, how deep- 
ly they may love — there’s always a mask, and 
it grows there ; and our own eyes are the slits. 
Even a mother with her first born in her arms 
looks down into its eyes in vain — those blue 
and transparent veils of a secret soul which 
sits behind them, impenetrable, inviolable.” 

After a silence she said : 

“ Silvette was right; you are a poet, Jim. 

. . . How dusky it is growing over the river. 
Silvette is probably superintending dinner 
preparations. Shall we go down ? ” 


CHAPTER V 


DE MOTU PROPRIO 

HEY arrived at Adriutha two days 
Cfe# later in a roaring downpour of June 
rain. A maid conducted Silvette and Diana 
to their rooms, a valet piloted Edgerton to 
another wing of the house devoted to bach- 
dors’ quarters over the vast billiard room. 

At the eastern end of the house Silvette 
stood beside the window while the maid as- 
signed to them undressed her. Diana, already 
in her pajamas and sandals, lay flat on the 
bed, one knee crossed over, swinging her slim, 
bare foot and looking out at the rain. 

It was a wet outlook across the meadows, 
over a low range of rocky and wooded hills, 
behind which the invisible sun had already 
set. In the drenched foreground, beyond 
the meadow’s matted edge, the Deerfield 
River tossed and foamed, swollen a deep- 
er amber by the rain — a wide, swift stream 
84 


De Motu Proprio 


set with spray-dashed bowlders, and bordered 
alternately by ledges dripping with verdure 
and sandy stretches full of low rain-beaten 
willows. The world, through its limpid veil 
of rain, looked like a silvery aquarelle framed 
by a window. 

Tea was presently served. Silvette in her 
silk lounging suit came over and seated her- 
self on the edge of the bed ; the maid finished 
drawing the bath, and retired until again sum- 
moned. 

“ Well,” sighed Silvette, pouring the tea, 
“ here we are, Di. How do you feel about it 
now ? ” 

“ Depressed/’ said Diana briefly. 

“ So do I, somehow. ... I wish we were 
back in New York, with just enough to live 
on.” 

Diana swung her foot gently, but made no 
reply. 

Presently she kicked off her sandal, lay 
thinking a moment, and then sat up and ac- 
cepted the cup of tea offered by her sister. 
They sipped their tea in silence for a while, 
nibbled toast and cakes until sufficiently re- 
freshed. 

“ After all,” observed Silvette, “ what we 

85 


Japonette 


are doing for a living is purely a matter of 
personal taste. It ought not to depress us.” 

“ We should have told hint! That is the 
only thing that worries me,” remarked Diana. 
“ Still, it is really none of his business what 
we do for a living.” 

“ After all,” repeated Silvette, “ what is 
there to tell him? Keno, Nevada, has nothing 
to learn from New York in frivolity, I fancy. 
There are several pretty women in every set 
who’d starve if they didn’t play cards better 
than their neighbors.” 

“ I rather wish we’d told him about our year 
there ; yet, what is there to tell ? Probably it 
resembled plenty of years with which he is 
perfectly familiar.” 

“ Do we have to account to Jim Edgerton 
anyway ? ” asked Silvette impatiently. 

“ He wanted to come with us,” mused Di- 
ana. “ When he wants to go, he’ll go fast 
enough, I fancy. It isn’t what he might think, 
or his possible disapproval, that worries me; 
it’s that he ought to have been told more about 
us in the beginning. . . . But how were we to 
tell him?” 

“ He didn’t ask, did he?” 

“No; but, somehow or other, we ought to 

86 


De Motu Proprio 


have put him au courant, and then he could 
have had his choice about recognizing the re- 
lationship or ignoring it. That’s what bothers 
me a little.” 

“ How could we possibly have told him all 
about ourselves the first afternoon we ever set 
eyes on him ? ” 

“ There were two other afternoons ; one is 
just ending. ... I don’t know ; I might easily 
have created a situation in which it would 
have seemed natural enough to mention our 
programme to him.” 

“Why didn’t you, Di?” 

“ Cowardice,” said the girl frankly ; and she 
stretched herself out flat on the bed again. 

“ Do you think as much of Jim Edgerton’s 
opinion as that ? ” 

“ I seem to. ... I didn’t want to take the 
risk of his disapproval. I’m beginning to real- 
ize that we’ve been dishonest with him.” 

“ That is an ugly word, little sister.” 

“ I don’t know any way to soften it. A girl 
is either honest or the contrary. I was not 
honest with Jim Edgerton.” 

“ He might not disapprove, after all. He 
is no provincial.” 

“Yes — and he might disapprove. Men of 

87 


Japonette 


his kind who stand for almost anything in out' 
siders are finicky about their own relatives. 
They really don’t care what imprudence other 
people commit; they may even admire it — 
even do it themselves — but there’s a difference 
as soon as it involves one of the family. I’ve 
an idea he is like that.” 

“ Isn’t it stretching a thin tie of kinship too 
far to speak of Jim Edgerton and ourselves 
in a family sense? Are you and I not rather 
inclined to abuse that word cousin, Diana ? ” 

“ He first used it to us/’ she said warmly ; 
“ it is his choice. He’s a very impulsive and 
generous boy ; do you know it ? ” 

“Yes, I do. . . . Isn’t it a thousand 
pities? ” 

“What about?” 

“ His losing everything — being so wretch- 
edly poor. . . . And our being poor, too.” 

“ Yes,” said Diana simply. 

“ And he’ll never, never recoup. He is full 
of talent, and nothing else. What a pity ! He 
isn’t the successful sort. It’s a pity, isn’t it, 
Di?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Because he is already quite mad about 
you, Di — he’s a perfect boy about you. . . . 

88 


I 



I wonder just how innocent we really are/ she said. 


































De Motn Proprio 


How can men of his age retain their niceness 
and charm and freshness, after what they usu- 
ally pass through. With all his undesirable 
wisdom and his masculine worldly experi- 
ences, he’s practically as innocent as we are.” 

Diana suddenly sat up cross-legged on the 
bed and gathered her ankles in her hands. 

“ I wonder just how innocent we really 
are,” she said, “ with all those things which 
we have been obliged to know about in our 
higher education? And — speaking of educa- 
tion — there was our last year in Keno. That 
year did some curious things to us. Do you 
realize our development, our worldly evolu- 
tion since the beginning of last year — how 
familiar we became with that doubtful worldly 
wisdom which is supposed to be part of the 
make-up of a woman of the world? . . . Do 
you realize that it was a year of laissez faire, 
of revelation, of laxity and acquiescence in 
relaxation, a year of paradox, of ceremony 
sans faqon, of schooling oneself to overlook 
and accept, of an education in morals and 
their immoral variations? How aloof have 
we kept ourselves from what we have learned 
to tolerate? — and how much was due to fas- 
tidiousness, how much to expediency, how 
8 9 


Japonette 


much to common sense, and how much to 
spiritual conviction ? ” 

“ Does your conscience really trouble you ? ” 
asked Silvette anxiously. 

“ No; only in regard to Jim Edgerton. I’d 
rather he knew how we regard life before he 
reclaims relationship in public; that’s all.” 

Silvette said : “ We are merely wiser ; merely 
less provincial and more honest and tolerant of 
a world that isn’t any too goody-goody. We’ve 
learned to distinguish between mock modesty, 
false shame, hypocrisy, and honest conviction. 
Take Keno, for instance; before we lived 
there we were inclined to look askance on 
what the world accepts with indifference and 
perfect good nature. I mean, on the rather 
lurid gayeties of a little world where attractive 
divorcees make up the bulk of society — where 
the eternal cry in the ballroom is 4 Change 
partners ! Ladies change ! ’ — and where no- 
body plays cards except for stakes. After all, 
Keno is merely a section of New York tem- 
porarily transplanted. He’d probably feel at 
home there.” 

Diana turned, deliberately rolled across the 
bed, landing lightly on her feet. 

“ All right,” she said ; “ only, some day 
90 


De Motu Proprio 


somebody will tell Jim Edgerton that those 
two cousins of his are outpacing propriety. 
We’re just a dash too pretty, Silvie, and we’ve 
simply got to be careful. There’s one enemy 
you and I will always have to reckon with — 
our own sex.” 

She walked to the window, looked out, and 
stood watching the rain, her childish mouth 
troubled. And, presently, speaking again 
without turning around: 

“ Our programme, as we have arranged it, 
was to be a general one — to win out, go in 
for everything, play the game as hard as it 
can be played, meet the gayer world face to 
face squarely, and take from it honestly all 
it has to offer.” 

“ Except love.” 

“ Except — that.” 

“ Love, per se, we can’t afford,” said Sil- 
vette gayly ; “ however, it may even be in- 
cluded. Who knows ? Material masculine 
eligibility need not necessarily exclude that 
agreeable passion, need it? Many a worthy 
heart beats beneath the waistcoat of the pluto- 
crat.” 

“ The chances are against any deal in 
hearts, as far as we are concerned.” 

91 


Japonette 


“ You’re not thinking of Jim Edgerton, are 
you, Di?” 

Diana stood, hands clasped behind her back, 
staring at the rain. Suddenly she pivoted on 
her sandals. 

“Yes, I am thinking of him. I’m thinking 
of him all the time.” 

“ That is very unwise,” said Silvette gently. 

“ I am thinking of him, but it’s only think- 
ing. ... I like him. I never liked any man 
better, or as well, perhaps. . . . And I’ve 
known him three days. Give me a day or two 
grace, and I’ll stop thinking about him.” 

“ You were quite mad over young Inwood 
in Keno,” mused Silvette. 

“ Yes. ... I realize that I like men. I en- 
joy them; if I had my way, I’d carry on like 
the deuce with every man who took my fancy, 
before I come to the final decision and spoil 
life for myself.” 

“ You carry on like the deuce now , sister,” 
said Silvette, laughing. 

“ I don’t do it enough,” retorted Diana 
fiercely ; “ what have I got to look forward to, 
after all? — a homeless life of social employ- 
ment, an old age of gossip and cards ! — or, if 
I win out, a loveless middle age wearing some 
92 


De Motu Proprio 


wealthy man’s name and pearls, and all the 
rest dashed out — the brightness, the youth of 
things, the hope of things, children ” 

“ You don’t want children ! ” exclaimed Sil- 
vette, horrified ; “ grubby little things ! I 
thought you hated them ! ” 

“ Grubby little things,” repeated the girl 
slowly ; “ so I do, in theory.” 

“ You don’t know anything about them 
practically.” 

“ Except at the Maternity Hospital. . . . 
Oh, Silvie, it is ghastly. . . . It’s horrid ! hor- 
rid ! — it’s devilishly unfair! . . . Young girls 
in the springtide of youth crept in and out of 
that dreadful place like the white ghosts of 
murdered souls! If maternity didn’t slay 
them, it killed the better part of them. Then 
the world ended for them — youth, hope, free- 
dom ended with the first thin cry of the tyrant 
that dooms all women. ... Yes, I — hate chil- 
dren ! ” She stood a moment, slim hands on 
her hips, head lowered with the brown locks 
clustering against her cheeks; then, looking 
up: 

“ But I mean to have one of my own some- 
time. Life to the full, dregs and all, before 
I die. That is my programme.” 

93 


Japonette 


Silvette laughed. “ This is a new and re- 
cent development, isn’t it ? ” 

“ I’m developing like lightning.” 

“ Lightning develops quickly, but it doesn’t 
last, dear.” 

Diana, lost in retrospection again, smiled 
vaguely. Then, lifting her pretty eyes: 

“ Did you ever see starlings feeding their 
young? A pair nested opposite the studio. I 
found their evolutions rather interesting.” 

“ No doubt,” said her sister. “ Is that 
what has aroused the maternal instinct ? 
Come, who is to bathe first. Pull down the 
shade and turn on the electricity, and ring 
for the maid, dear. She ought to lay out our 
gowns at once.” 

Diana did as she was bidden ; then, on im- 
pulse, sat down at the little fly-away desk and 
scribbled a note: 

“ Take it to Mr. Edgerton,” she said to the 
maid. 

Edgerton, dressing leisurely, read the note 
where he stood under the electric cluster: 

“ Dear Jim : The rain, the world, and things 
oppress me. So do you sometimes. . . . 
94 


De Motu Proprio 


There’s a long future ahead of me. I dread 
it — who was eager for the plunge a few days 
since. I seem to be standing on the threshold 
of things in general, waiting for my cue to 
enter, but with little heart for the stage now. 
Alas, I am already tired before the overture 
has ended. 

“If we dance to-night, ask me. Probably 
I’m the only girl in the house who could stand 
a dance with you — and I’m not so certain 
about myself. . . . But if we play Bridge, 
continue not to sit at our table. I ask it of 
you for reasons which are none of your busi- 
ness. Indulge my whim, please. 

“ Japonette.” 

He finished dressing, then scribbled a note 
to her, and sent it by the valet : 

“ Japonette, dear, I’m as rotten at cards 
as I am dancing. I won’t permit indiscreet 
infatuation to interfere with your Bridge. . . . 
And, by the way, in this sort of a house the 
chances are they’ll play for stakes — probably 
high stakes. My limit is a cent a point — or 
was in days of affluence — but our host will 
scarcely expect us to risk our salaries, I fancy. 
So even if you have no objection to playing 

95 


Japonette 


for stakes — which probably, however, you 
have — you need not feel obliged to. Our 
duties here do not include losing money to 
Mr. Rivett’s assorted guests, you know. Feel 
perfectly at liberty to let the table carry you 
and Silvette. 

“ Shall I wait and go down with you both ? 

“J. E.” 

She read the note; then handed it silently 
to Silvette, who read it also in silence. 

“ You see,” said Diana, “ it’s exactly what 
I told you. He doesn’t wish us to play for 
stakes.” 

“ He says nothing here about his wishes. 
. . . Besides, it would be an impertinence for 
him to make any such suggestion to either you 
or me.” 

“ His attitude is plain enough — if you think 
it impertinent.” 

“ I don’t think it is. He indicates that he 
supposes we do not play for stakes, and adds 
that, anyway, we need not if we don’t wish 
to. That is all the note expresses. Anyway, 
it doesn’t matter, does it ? ” 

Diana shook her disheveled head, seated 
herself and wrote a hasty answer, sending it 
96 


De Motu Proprio 


away by the valet, who was waiting outside 
the door. 

“ Don’t wait for us ; we’re not hooked up 
yet. We’re quite accustomed to play for 
stakes, you funny boy, so that need cause you 
no uneasiness. . . . And please don’t forget 
to ask me, if they dance.” 

Edgerton stood thinking for a moment be- 
fore his fireplace after reading the missive; 
then struck a match and lit the two notes, 
holding them together until almost consumed, 
and lingered still to watch the edge of yellow 
flame on the hearth licking up the remaining 
margins of the paper. 

Then he went downstairs and into a green 
and gold drawing-room, where his hostess re- 
ceived him shyly, almost timidly — a small 
gray-haired woman all over jewels whose 
thin little hand trembled slightly in his. 

It was a frail hand, fragile of bone, yet 
never the hand of generations of leisure, for 
the joints were hard and accented, and the 
fingers rather worn than thin — as though 
once not unaccustomed to household labor; 
and, without knowing just why, he re- 
tained the diamond-laden hand in his firm, 

97 


Japonette 


warm clasp for a moment as though to reas- 
sure her. 

“ It is nice of you to ask us,” he said gently. 
“ You have made everything very easy and 
comfortable for us. My cousins will be down 
in a few moments; they asked me to come 
first.” 

The little gray woman looked up into his 
pleasant, well-cut face as though confused; 
he smiled down at her, still retaining her hand. 

“ My husband has told me who you are,” 
she said. “ I didn’t expect you to be just like 
this. ... You and your cousins are our 
very welcome and honored guests. . . . Our 
guests she repeated almost tremulously, 
“ and none more welcome under our roof.” 

“ It is gracious and kind of you to say so,” 
he said, touched by the simplicity and the mild, 
faded face upturned. 

Then Mr. Rivett came forward, cautiously 
treading the velvet, his two burned-brown 
eyes fixed behind the big concave eyeglasses. 

“ It’s wet weather,” he said, shaking hands. 
“ I hope your quarters are comfortable.” 

“ Most luxurious, thank you — with a 
beautiful outlook.” 

Mrs. Rivett’s gentle voice sounded at his 

98 


De Motu Proprio 


elbow presenting him to her daughter and 
son, and after that to several others who, for 
the moment, he made no effort to distinguish 
one from another except that he recog- 
nized Colonel Curmew in superb form and 
obtrusive pearl studs decorating a fluted shirt 
front. 

A moment later Silvette and Diana entered, 
slender and youthful, with all the softly 
flushed charm of eighteen and the winning 
composure of a wider experience than eighteen 
years can ever lend. 

Colonel Curmew presently outflanked Sil- 
vette, forcing her skillfully into a momentary 
retreat toward the recess of a window, where 
he blockaded her and curled his mustache with 
satisfaction and shot his cuffs, and prepared 
to drive in her outer pickets. 

Diana remained in quiet conversation with 
Mrs. Rivett, the latter shy, wistful, and ill at 
ease by turns ; the former sweet and deferen- 
tial, yet all the while composedly taking the 
measure of the others in the room, and of the 
room itself, vaguely aware in her apparently 
smiling preoccupation that she was winning a 
perplexed and timid heart. 

Cocktails were served — unusual ones that 

99 


Japonette 


had a scent like the original Ricky, that is, 
the aromatic odor of wild blossoms. 

The little gray woman barely tasted hers, 
with that same inborn instinct, perhaps, that 
impelled those old-, time hostesses in the days 
when viands and wines sometimes proved 
fatal. 

Then Edgerton relieved her of her scarcely 
touched glass; took Diana’s, too, which was 
still half full. Mrs. Rivetc rose and gave him 
her arm, to his surprise; Mr. Rivett took in 
Diana, his son Silvette. The name of Edger- 
ton had counted heavily. 

In the dining room everything was grossly 
overdone except the cookery — the sort of 
thing most calculated to annoy and bore the 
very man most accustomed to it in town ; pro- 
fusion akin to the plethora which offends; 
effort impossible to disguise which stirs even 
in the most good-natured and generous an un- 
willing contempt. 

Edgerton let his eyes rest for a moment, 
outside the silver and crystal-set circle of 
light, on gold, heavy carving, gilded tapestry 
and picture, and withdrew his gaze gravely. 
Men servants swarmed, bothering him; the 
scent of greenhouse blossoms, forced before 
IOO 


De Motu Proprio 


their time; the heavy magnificence out of 
place — all slightly disgusted him, though much 
of it was about what he had expected of such 
people. 

Little Miss Rivett, on his left, dissected her 
terrapin with the healthy attention of youth 
and hunger; and presently he turned to look 
at her with amused but wholly amiable curi- 
osity. 

He saw a small, plump, dainty maid, with 
exceedingly clear and bright brown eyes, and 
a softly brilliant complexion, looking back at 
him with unconcealed interest. 

There was a moment’s silence, then they 
both smiled. 

“ Do you think you’ll like us ? ” she asked 
saucily ; “ or do you hate us already ? ” 

“ Not the slightest doubt of my liking 
you, Miss Rivett; but how about your lik- 
ing us ? ” 

“ Your cousins are most bewitching and be- 
wildering. ... You seem to be nice — are 
you?” 

" Very,” he said, laughing. “ I’m glad you 
gave me an opportunity of saying so, because 
otherwise it might not have been perfectly 
clear to you.” 

IOI 


Japonette 


“ I am rather fastidious,” she said. “ How 
well do you dance ? ” 

“ My grace in that praiseworthy pastime is 
ursine.” 

“ Really?” 

“ Unbearably.” 

" You are very British, aren’t you ? ” 

“ Do you refer to my little play upon 
words ? ” 

“No, generally; that was merely a touch 
of local color. Naturally, also, you fishshoot- 
ridetohoundsandplaypolo ; do you ? ” 

“ Also gawf, dear lady.” 

“ Perfectly symmetrical and indistinguish- 
able from others of your kind. I thought so. 
Crocky, too ? ” 

“ Certainly, crocky,” he admitted ; “ also no 
bank account. You may call me m’lud with 
impunity.” 

“ Perhaps you’re not entirely qualified. 
How do you stand on the heiress question, 
Mr. Edgerton?” 

“ I can’t qualify there.” 

“ Then you’re a sham. Besides, you’re nei- 
ther clever nor gallant. I am an heir- 
ess.” 

“ Then I qualify at once as a fortune 
102 


De Motu Proprio 


hunter,” he said, laughing, “ and I’ll cable for 
my solicitors.” 

“ What are you saying ? ” asked Mrs. Riv- 
ett in her gentle, uncertain voice. 

“ Mother, Mr. Edgerton and I are going to 
be friends. Perhaps he isn’t sure of it, but I 
am. Tell him what happens when I am sure 
of anything.” 

“ Dear, perhaps Mr. Edgerton doesn’t quite 
understand your manner of saying things.” 

“That’s just it; he does understand! He 
is going to turn out exceedingly nice, mother ; 
watch him ! ” 

“ Christine ! Please be a little less personal 
and abrupt.” 

They turned, smiling, toward the other end 
of the table where much laughter sounded. 
Evidently Diana and Silvette were becoming 
very popular, and, somehow, it occurred to 
Edgerton that perhaps this great room had 
not often resounded with mirth. 

But the chatter and laughter were incessant 
now; so were the servants’ ministrations, and 
Edgerton was glad enough to give his arm to 
the faded little woman beside him and take 
her to her great, gilded chair in the drawing- 
room, and follow the men to another room, 
103 


Japonette 


where blue smoke from cigars presently floated 
to the ceiling. 

Jack Rivett, rather too plump and smooth, 
moved into a chair beside Edgerton; and the 
latter, who had prejudged him from his ap- 
pearance, was slightly surprised to find the 
youth widely read, widely traveled, with a 
mind and even a wit entirely his own, and 
an original but sometimes callow comment for 
any subject brought up. 

In a desultory conversation it presently 
transpired that young Rivett was a candidate 
for the Patroon’s Club. 

“ You’re a member, I believe ; are you not ? ” 
he asked Edgerton. 

“ I have resigned.” 

“ Oh ! I thought that was the one club 
from which nobody ever resigned. I beg your 
pardon, Edgerton ! ” he added, turning red ; 
“ don’t think me a cad.” 

“ No offense,” smiled Edgerton; “I re- 
signed because I couldn’t afford it. It’s a good 
club; hope you make it soon.” 

“ I hope I do. . . . But we’re rather recent 
additions — if we are additions — to New York. 
You never can tell what New Yorkers will 
do to people like us,” he added laughingly. 

104 


De Motu Proprio 


“ New York is practically composed of re- 
cent residents,” said Edgerton, smiling. 

“ They’re the most pitiless to newcomers. 
I wouldn’t be very much afraid if we had only 
your sort to encounter. If you old residents 
like a man, he gets his hat check ultimately, 
and passes in; but it lies with the sidewalk 
speculators now. The seats of the mighty 
are in their hands.” 

Edgerton was much amused. 

“Not entirely,” he said; “even we older 
residents are asked about now and then.” 

“ Into which of the three circles — Smart, 
Knickerbocker, or Old Testament?” 

Edgerton was laughing so frankly that Riv- 
ett senior turned his convex glasses on him; 
and, deciding that the laughter was genuine 
and not included in services, went on with 
his business conversation with a Mr. Snaith 
— a large, soft-skinned gentleman deeply im- 
mersed in oil and cotton. 

Colonel Curmew came over briskly, expell- 
ing smoke. 

“ What are you youngsters playing this 
evening? Auction or Chinese Kahn?” 

“ However, they choose to make up the 
tables,” said Jack Rivett lazily. Then, as 
105 


Japonette 


though on an after thought : “ I doubt whether 
Mr. Edgerton bothers with cards; do you?” 

“ I don’t mind, except that I’ve cut out 
playing for stakes,” replied Edgerton, per- 
fectly aware of Jack Rivett’s kindly consid- 
eration in giving him a chance to escape grace- 
fully, and a trifle amused, too, that the young 
man should suppose he cared what anybody 
in the place might think of him. 

Servants were now arranging the old-fash- 
ioned colonial card tables in the noticeably 
old-fashioned colonial card room. A young 
girl or two appeared at the arched doorway, 
lingering on the threshold as several of the 
men came out to gossip. 

Then the hostess appeared with the others ; 
groups formed, shifted, and gradually sub- 
sided into seats ; seals of fresh packs were 
broken, scores penciled, the first hands dealt 
at auction. 

Diana, Colonel Curmew, a very pretty Mrs. 
Wemyss, and Mr. Rivett sat together; at an- 
other table Silvette, Mr. Snaith, Christine 
Rivett, and a Mr. Dineen — a gentleman weigh- 
ing some two hundred pounds and wearing an 
attractive snub nose and a pair of merry gray- 
blue eyes. 

106 


De Motu Proprio 


And the awful hush of auction descended 
without a sound. 

Edgerton and his hostess and a Judge Wick- 
low and a Mrs. Lorrimore — a fair, fat, blue- 
eyed thing with a cupid-bow mouth as sweet 
as the smile that abode there — settled them- 
selves to Chinese Kahn, a game spelled in 
various ways and played in several more. 

“ Stakes ? ” inquired Mrs. Lorrimore with 
businesslike directness. 

“ Your pleasure,” replied Judge Wicklow 
in the deep, thick voice celebrated and feared 
where judicial procedures are thickest and 
most unimportant. 

“ Neither Mr. Edgerton nor I care to gam- 
ble — I think,” said Mrs. Rivett timidly. 

The judge turned his bovine countenance 
on Edgerton. The only anomaly in it seemed 
to be his eyebrows. Cows have no eyebrows. 

“ I’m sorry,” said Edgerton. 

The judge seemed sorry, too, but he shuffled 
the two packs in his enormous and hairy 
hands, dealt, and deposited the surplus in a 
pile with a single card separate and face up- 
ward — the ace of hearts. 

Mrs. Lorrimore promptly picked it up, laid 
down three aces, four fours, a small sequence 
[°7 


Japonette 


interiorly made possible, by a joker, and sat 
back triumphantly with her depleted suit in 
her gemmed fingers, which were pressed com- 
fortably to an ample bosom. 

“ Discard,” rumbled the judge. 

“ Oh, I beg pardon ! ” She laughed, and 
laid down a nine. 

Nobody ever wants a nine, somehow. The 
judge snorted, helped himself, discarded, and 
turned his heavy countenance on his hostess. 

“ Dear me,” she said in her humble little 
voice, “ I — I’m afraid — afraid I’m going 
out ! ” 

“What!” thundered his honor. “Nobody 
ever goes out first hand, madam ! ” 

But she timidly did that very thing to the 
suppressed fury of his honor, who had cher- 
ished a long sequence, according to rule, and 
was further nursing the other joker and three 
kings. 

“ It’s too bad,” she ventured, looking around 
at Edgerton, whose entire hand was being 
minutely counted by Mrs. Lorrimore. 

“ I don’t mind ! ” said the young fellow, 
laughing; and he leaned a trifle nearer and 
added under his breath : “ But suppose I had 
played for stakes ! ” 

108 


De Motu Proprio 


Into her timid and faded eyes came the 
ghost of a glimmer — the momentary sparkle 
of fun, and went out very quickly. 

But it had been there for a second; and 
thereafter Edgerton found a curious pleasure 
in making it come back at intervals. She even 
laughed — even ventured to provoke his laugh- 
ter — rather scared at trying until his quick 
mirth set her at momentary ease again. 

Luck bedeviled his honor; the fair Mrs. 
Lorrimore won steadily without the least re- 
spect for the law and no consideration at 
all for the sanctity of the bench; and the 
judge became peevish. He was a very rich 
man. 

Presently he had enough of it — letters to 
write for the morning mail — and got himself 
out and upstairs with the dignity of a fly- 
pestered ox. 

“ Horrid old screw,” observed Mrs. Lorri- 
more in Edgerton’s ear, and laughed her pecu- 
liarly sweet and captivating laugh as a servant 
returned with his honor’s check in an angrily 
scrawled envelope. 

Mrs. Rivett had passed into a farther room, 
where the high gilded pipes of an organ glim- 
mered in the subdued light. Edgerton saw 
109 


Japonette 


her seated there — a thin, bejeweled little 
figure beneath the tall gothic majesty of the 
pipes. 

After a while the low harmony of an old- 
time hymn stole into the card room. 

Those at the bridge tables remained silent 
and absorbed, except Mr. Rivett, who cau- 
tiously turned his sphinxlike countenance 
toward the farther dusk where his wife was 
seated. 

Edgerton stood behind Diana’s chair, 
watching. Presently he went over to Silvette, 
lingered for a while, then came back to Diana 
again. 

An hour later Mr. Rivett said abruptly: 
*' Does anybody care to dance ? ” 

The effect was like a pistol shot on lotus 
eaters. Slowly the players came out of their 
absorption; color returned faintly to white, 
tense faces. 

“ I suppose I may ask it ? ” added Mr. Riv- 
ett dryly. “ I’m a heavy loser.” 

“ Sure thing, dad,” said Jack with a laugh. 
“ I’m about even, and I venture to ask it, too. 
Does anybody here want to dance? You 
surely won’t object,” he added mischievously 
to Silvette. 


no 


De Motu Proprio 


“ I have no right to say anything at all,” 
she laughed. 

“ Every right — the right of the conqueror ! 
Accept my bow and spear — and speak! . . . 
How is it with your sister?” 

“ I’m afraid I haven’t any voice in the mat- 
ter, either,” said Diana serenely. “ It is for 
the losers to decide.” 

They decided to dance. Mrs. Rivett came 
from the dim music room and stood watching 
them with her little worn hands folded, while 
servants lighted and cleared the larger drawing- 
room, designed for a ballroom, with its little 
gilded balcony aloft and the great concert 
grand in its carved and gilded foliations sprawl- 
ing like a bedizened elephant in the corner. 

A servant was sent for “ mademoiselle ” — 
evidently somebody who lived somewhere in 
the house whose duties included dance music. 
Meanwhile Edgerton sat down at the piano, 
and began a fascinating Spanish waltz. 

“ Traitor,” whispered a fresh, young voice 
at his elbow, and he looked up into the win- 
ning eyes of Diana. 

“ Hello,” he said ; “ how went the battle ? ” 

“ The cards?” 

“ Yes.” 


Ill 


Japonette 


“ As usual, thank you.” 

“ Oh ! And how do they usually go with 
you, fair cousin ? ” 

“ Well enough,” she said briefly. 

She stood leaning on the piano. 

“ You play cleverly,” she observed. 

“ Oh, yes — cleverly. There’s nothing else 
to anything I do.” 

“ Isn’t that enough ? ” 

“Is it, Diana?” 

“ Enough as far as music is concerned,” she 
said impatiently. “ Did you ever see a musical 
virtuoso whom a real man didn’t want to 
kick ? And as for you,” she added, “ you are 
a traitor. You said you would ask me to 
dance. Now, if you ask me, I wont !” 

Still playing, he continued to look up at her 
smilingly. 

“ What do you really care about me any- 
way ? ” he said. “ I wish you’d tell me, Di- 

tf 

ana. 

“ Honestly, or flippantly ? ” 

“ Honestly.” 

“ Masks off, you mean ? ” 

“ Yes — as far off as they’ll come.” 

“ I care a lot about you.” 

“ You say it too frankly,” he laughed. 

1 12 


De Motu Proprio 


“ What I say, I say. . . . Did you find 
Christine Rivett agreeable at dinner?” 

“ She’s interesting.” 

“ Is that all ! ” evidently disappointed. 

“ Well, she’s very fetching.” 

“ That is far more serious.” 

“ Indeed, it is. I’ve qualified as an aspirant 
for her hand and fortune already.” 

“ I don’t doubt it,” she returned calmly. 
“ That’s one reason her father decided to em- 
ploy us.” 

She said it unsmiling, and after he had 
looked up at her once or twice he said : “ Of 
course you are joking.” 

“Oh, yes; it’s one kind of a jest. Mean- 
while here comes a young person in black — 
doubtless mademoiselle. . . . I’m not going 
to dance with you; don’t compose your fea- 
tures in that smug fashion. You’re a traitor, 
and I won’t.” 

She turned on her heel and advanced 
leisurely toward Colonel Curmew, who im- 
mediately began to twirl his mustache and 
shoot his cuffs, when, without warning, she 
sheered off into the receptive arms of Jack 
Rivett, and was presently drifting across the 
room in a Viennese waltz. 

ii 3 


J.yponette 


Others were dancing now; Edgerton went 
over and asked his hostess — an old New York 
custom now obsolete — who colored and smiled 
at him, explaining that she had renounced that 
art with the advent of rheumatism. So, after 
a while, he took out her daughter Christine 
— also an obsolete custom — who soon, how- 
ever, had enough of him as a dancer, and took 
him into the conservatory. 

The others danced until supper time; mid- 
night found them separating on the stairs. 
Edgerton and Christine Rivett had rather a 
prolonged leave-taking, then shook hands cor- 
dially in plain view of everybody. 

Diana, passing with Silvette, said a careless 
good night to him. Silvette, retaining her sis- 
ter’s arm, detained him for a moment in con- 
versation ; then they went away together, Di- 
ana dismissing him with an inattentive nod. 

But, as he was prepared for his pillow, a 
servant brought an envelope to his door and 
tucked it under the sill. 

Inside was a single line: 

“ Good night, Jim.” 

The handwriting was now familiar to him* 


CHAPTER VI 


PACTA CONVENTA 


UESTS arrived and guests departed 
Vi) from Adriutha, but the original gather- 
ing remained. 

The people who came and went were about 
the kind that Edgerton had expected to en- 
counter — people identified with nothing in 
particular except money, and not always 
with that. 

For, into the social mess at Adriutha an 
author or two was occasionally stirred as sea- 
soning; sometimes an artist became tempo- 
rarily englutenized over a week-end, emerging 
on Monday well fed and satiated with hope 
of material results from cohabitation with 
wealth — which never materialized. 

Edgerton was inclined to take them all as 
cheerfully as he found them — at their face 
value; and they were not always pretty. 

Loyalty to obligation was inherent in his 

115 


Japonette 


race, perhaps the strongest trait in him; and 
all his inclinations toward what was easiest, 
his content with the superficial, his tendency 
to drift, had not yet radically altered this 
trait, nor perhaps other qualities latent under 
the froth. 

For a few days in the beginning, humor- 
ous curiosity, the novelty of his anomalous 
position, the very rawness of the experience, 
amused him; but the veneer of everything 
soon wore thin, revealing the duller surface 
underneath. Then came uneasiness and im- 
patience ; but loyalty to his bargain and to his 
kindred were matters of course, and he de- 
termined to find in these people something to 
interest him and render his sojourn among 
them at least endurable. 

After that first stormy night in June, the 
splendor of a limpid, rain-washed morning 
had revealed to him the gross outward impos- 
sibility of this place of millions — the vast, new 
“ villa,” red-tiled and yellow-walled, hideous 
in its multiplicity of roofs, angles, terraces 
and bays, with outlying works of rubble, con- 
crete, and railroad-station floral embellish- 
ment. 

Scarring the green crypt of nature, stain- 
116 


Pacta Convent a 


ing the glass of the stream with painted re- 
flections of its architectural deformities, 
Adriutha Lodge sprawled monsterlike and 
naked in the summer sunshine. 

Garage, hothouses, stables, barns, a farm, 
a model dairy, like grewsome spawn of a 
common architectural dam, affronted the 
woods and meadows of this little valley set 
among the remote Berkshires. 

There was no reticence left in that dese- 
crated valley all vibrant with the scream of 
discordant color, texture, and design. Motor 
cars, too, were noisy along the road; all day 
the silver-mounted trappings of horses flashed 
in the sun. Staccato echoes from power 
boats on the artificial lake offended. The 
House of Rivett challenged the Eternal pa- 
tience with a hundred lightning rods. 

Edgerton, walking his horse beside Diana’s, 
suddenly drew bridle with an uncontrollable 
gesture of disgust. 

“ Listen to me,” he said ; “ where man’s 
despoiling labor pollutes nature, sadness and 
resignation make heavy the hearts of her true 
lovers, but where man’s abominable ignorance 
desecrates, reigns a more shocking desolation 
which no modest heart ever forgives ! ” 

ii 7 


Japonette 


Diana, surprised by the sudden and unex- 
pected outburst, drew bridle beside his stand- 
ing horse. 

A moment previous they had been amiably 
exchanging idle gossip from their saddles, 
gradually falling back behind the others — 
Silvette, Christine, Jack, and Colonel Curmew 
— who had cantered on forward ; and now, 
suddenly out of a clear sky, not apropos of 
anything, Edgerton had flashed out the bolt 
of his contempt for the House of Rivett — for 
his ox, his ass, his servants, and all that was 
Rivett’s. 

“ Jimp she remarked, “ isn’t it rather bad 
taste of you to say that?” 

“Why? I am paid for being here.” But 
he realized that she was right, and it made 
him sullen. 

“ His roof shelters you none the less,” she 
said quietly. 

“ Yours is rather a fine-drawn sense of hos- 
pitality, it seems to me,” he retorted. 

“ I can’t snap at the hand that feeds 
me.” 

“ Good Lord ! May a man not have his own 
ideas ? ” 

“ Under lock and key, yes.” 

1 18 


Pacta Convent a 


“All right,” he said, reddening; “only I 
supposed I could be frank with you.” 

“Are we actually on any such footing?” 
she asked quietly. 

“ I thought so — even a footing on which I 
permit myself to accept such a rebuke from 
you.” 

She turned in her saddle. 

“Permit yourself?” she repeated. “Do 
you mean condescend? ” 

“ I mean what I say,” he retorted sulkily, 
still smarting under her rebuke. 

Her cheeks were bright with anger, her lips 
compressed as though silence had become an 
effort. Presently, however, she looked across 
at him with perfect sweetness and composure. 

“ No, you don’t mean what you say, Jim. 
If you did, you would be at a disadvantage 
with me, and you don’t want to be that; nor 
do I wish to be, ever.” 

He said obstinately : “ I’m getting sick of 
this Adriutha business.” 

“ I predicted you would.” 

“ Well, I am. ... It isn’t false pride ; I 
don’t care what they think about me. If I 
chose to be a waiter in a Broadway cafe, their 
opinion wouldn’t concern me. . . . I’m sim- 
119 


Japonette 


ply weary of the place, the majority of the 
people — what they think and do, their private 
life, their mere coming in and going out. . . . 
It isn't the pitiable absurdity of their offensive 
environment alone, the horror of the archi- 
tecture, the gilded entrails of their abode — it’s 
the whole bally combination ! . . . I'm sick — 
sick! And that’s the truth, Diana.” 

“ I think,” she said, smiling, “ that you are 
also a little bit bored with us.” 

He looked up at her, perplexed, already be- 
ginning to be very much ashamed of his out- 
burst, already conscious of a painful reaction 
from his unrestraint. 

“ Diana,” he said impulsively, “ I’m just a 
plain brute, and rather a vulgar one ; but, do 
you know, there isn’t anybody else in the 
world I'd have permitted to hear that outburst 
— whether you take it as a compliment or not.” 

“ You mean you don’t care what I think of 
you?” 

He thought for a moment. “ I can't mean 
that, of course.” 

“ You might, very easily.” 

“ I couldn’t ; I do care what you think of 
me. Probably what I meant was that I — 
dare say things to you; that I've a sort of 
120 


Pacta Convent a 


instinct that I can come to you in an emer- 
gency ” 

“ In other words, that I’ll stand anything 
from you ? ” she said, smiling. “ I don’t know 
about that, my friend/’ 

He looked at her curiously. “ I believe 
you’ll stand a good deal from me — and still 
like me. I, somehow, count on it.” 

She met his gaze directly, unsmiling now. 

“ A hair divides my sentiments concern- 
ing you,” she said. “ Extremes lie on either 
side.” 

“ Extremes ? ” 

“ I think so. It would take very little to 
fix definitely my opinion of you.” 

Sobered, but still curious, he sat his saddle 
more firmly while the horses paced forward, 
shoulder against shoulder, along the forest 
road. 

“ I didn’t suppose you had any very violent 
opinions concerning me one way or another,” 
he said lightly. 

“ I haven’t — yet.” 

“ Or would ever develop them, either,” he 
added, laughing. 

“ I probably never shall.” 

He said, after another silence : “ What was 
121 


Japonette 


it about a hair dividing your sentiments, and 
that extremes lay on either side ? ” 

“ I said that, Jim.” 

“Extremes of what?” 

“ Dislike — friendship — I suppose. . . . I’m 
a person addicted to extremes.” 

“ Hatred is one extreme. Did you mean 
that, Japonette?” 

“ It is conceivable, fair sir.” 

“ And — the other extreme ? ” 

“ Which?” 

“ The opposite extreme to hate. ... Is 
that conceivable, too ? ” 

“ Do you mean love ? ” she asked coolly. 

“ Yes, love, for example.” 

“ Well, for example, ask yourself how 
likely I am to entertain that sentimental ex- 
treme in your regard.” 

“Oh,” he said; “then all you threaten me 
with is hatred ! ” 

“ Absolutely all, cousin James.” 

“ Hobson’s choice for mine. No matter 
how agreeable I may be, placid friendship is 
my only reward; and if I’m not agreeable, 
hatred. Is that it?” 

“Are you not satisfied?” she asked, lifting 
her prettily shaped eyes. 

122 


Pacta Convent a 


He made no reply. 

Yet, he had been satisfied, except at inter- 
vals during the first flush of their unconven- 
tional friendship, when she was still a fas- 
cinating novelty to him, when the charming 
memory of the surprise was still vivid. 

But since then, recently in fact, other mat- 
ters, somehow, had intervened — the dawning 
distaste for his own position, the apparent ab- 
sence of any future prospect, the gradual con- 
viction that he had no real capacity for de- 
cently earning a living, no ability — perhaps no 
character. 

His silence seemed to be her answer now; 
she spurred forward, accepting it. He put his 
horse to a canter, to a gallop, and they raced 
away through the woods until they came in 
sight of the others. Colonel Curmew joined 
her; Edgerton rode forward with Christine 
Rivett. 

That afternoon there was some tennis 
played; a number of commonplace and very 
rich people departed, leaving as residue the 
original house party which Edgerton and his 
cousins had found there on their arrival, and 
123 


Japonette 


who now knew one another well enough to 
separate into sympathetic groups. 

Thus, Judge Wicklow, Mrs. Rivett, and 
Mrs. Lorrimore played Chinese Kahn under 
the terrace awning; Colonel Follis Curmew, 
who had been rash enough to discard his coat 
and reveal an unlooked-for excess of abdo- 
men, played tennis with Silvette against Jack 
Rivett and Mrs. Wemyss ; Mr. Rivett and Mr. 
Snaith indulged in laborious clock golf and 
talked of oil ; and Christine and Edgerton, 
down by the river’s edge, continued a con- 
versation begun the evening previous, and 
which was near enough to meaning something 
to stimulate their attention. 

From his clock golf on the lawn above,. 
Mr. Rivett turned his convex glasses on them 
occasionally; from one card table on the ter- 
race, her mother, drawing the white wool 
shawl closer around her slight shoulders, 
watched her daughter from moment to mo- 
ment. 

Later, the game ended, Mrs. Lorrimore 
victorious, and his honor unusually peevish. 
Mrs. Rivett rose and, advancing to the terrace 
edge, gazed down at the river bank, where her 
daughter and Edgerton still sat in the floating 
124 


Pacta Convent a 


canoe, holding it inshore by grasping willow 
branches overhead. 

For a few moments the little old lady 
watched them, one hand gathering the fleece 
shawl over the magnificent sapphire at her 
breast; then she turned quietly away into the 
house, wandering through it from one gorge- 
ous room to another, until at last she came ta 
the high organ. 

Here her husband found her in the semi- 
dusk, sitting motionless and silent under the 
tall pipes, hands folded in her lap. 

“ Well, mother?” he said in a voice which 
nobody else ever had the privilege of listen- 
ing to. 

She lifted her head, smiled, and laid one 
hand over his as he seated himself beside her 
in the demi-twilight. 

“ Are you happy ? ” he asked, patting the 
worn fingers. 

“Yes, Jacob — when you and the children 
are.” 

“ Does that damn Sims bother you ? ” 

No, the housekeeper did not bother her; 
neither did Noonan, general superintendent. 

“ Are you sure you are feeling perfectly 
well?” 


125 


Japonette 


“ Yes, dear/’ 

“And you are enjoying the people?” 

“Yes. . . . The Tennant girls are so kind 
to me.” 

“ Why the devil shouldn’t they be ? ” he 
;said harshly. “ They never met a better 
woman ! ” 

“ Jacob, dear, don’t speak that way.” 

“ Well, then — don’t be so eternally sur- 
prised if people are nice to you, mother. 
They’d better be ! ” 

She smiled. “ I am a rather plain and un- 
attractive old woman to young people — to 
most people. I have little to say, but Diana 
Tennant and her sister are very sweet to me. 
Poor, motherless girls ! I wonder — it troubles 
me — sometimes — a great deal ” 

“ What ? ” he asked grimly. 

“ Their being so entirely alone, and so un- 
usually attractive. . . . And they’re good 
girls, Jacob.” 

“ I assume that they are,” he said dryly. 

“ They are ; a woman knows at once. . . . 
They’ve made everybody — all our guests — 
enjoy their visits so much. Don’t you think 
so?” 

“ They’ve earned their salaries. . . . People 
126 


Pacta Convent a 


seem to like ’em. . . . I’m wondering how 
much Jack likes the younger one — Silvette.” 

“ Have you thought so, too ? ” 

“ I’m asking you, Sarah.” 

There was a silence ; then she said timidly : 

u Do you know anything more about them ? ” 

“ They’re rather learned,” he said grimly. 
“ One, I understand, is entitled to practice 
medicine — the other law. . . . They scarcely 
look it.” 

“ Those babies ! ” 

“ Certainly. Snaith was at Keno on busi- 
ness last winter ; he heard of ’em there. Also 
— I’ve inquired.” 

“You have learned nothing to their dis- 
credit, I am sure,” she said confidently. 

“No; as the fast world wags, they’re re- 
spectable enough ” 

“ Fast ! Jacob ! ” 

“ Oh, Sarah, I didn’t mean it in any sinis- 
ter sense. . . . They’re merely rather gay — 
into everything everywhere — dancing all night, 
riding, motoring all over the shop. . . . 
They’re pretty girls, and good ones, too, I 
guess. . . . But the world has gone by us, 
mother. It’s developed speed. That’s what 
I mean by fast.” 


127 


Japonette 


“If it were not for the children’s sake, I 
would be glad to be left behind,” she said, 
smiling. 

“ So would I. Damn this gim-crack fol-de- 
rol ! ” 

“ Jacob ! ” 

“ Excuse me. . . . We’ll do what we ought 
to; the children want New York, and I’m go- 
ing to give it to them if I can. ... So I 
guess you’d better caution Jack about that 
girl.” 

“About Miss Tennant?” 

“ Silvette; yes. Tell him to keep away.” 

“ But she is Mr. Edgerton’s cousin.” 

“ It’s too far off to count ; besides, it’s not 
a good enough gamble. As far as that goes, 
I’m not satisfied that Jim Edgerton is good 
enough.” 

“ Oh, Jacob ! You said ” 

“If I’d stuck to all I’ve said, you’d still be 
doing the family cooking, dear. Jim Ed- 
gerton does, or did, go everywhere in New 
York. ... I wonder how far he could take 
our daughter with him? . . . Wait, Sarah 
— I’m not reflecting on Christine; I’m only 
speculating. How do I know about the cus- 
toms and habits of the New York fauna? I 
T 28 


Pacta Conventa 


want to go slow. I don’t care how little 
money he has, or even how much he might 
have had ; I’ll do that part. But, first, I want 
to know exactly where he can take Christine. 
The knot hole may be too big for her.” 

“ They sent you a report from New York, 
dear. You have a full list of all his relatives.” 

“ I know — I know. If he had none, I 
wouldn’t be afraid. It’s a man’s relatives 
who act nasty, not his friends. . . . Does 
Christine seem to like him ? ” 

“ The child is frankly devoted to him. . . . 
I don’t know if it means anything more than 
friendship. Christine is a strange girl. There 

was young Inwood ” 

“ Everybody’s beau ! Glad she shipped him. 
. . . But to return to Jack — what’s your 
opinion ? ” 

“ I don’t know. He is with Silvette so 

much ; he is such a dear boy ” 

“ Tell him plainly we don’t want her. . . . 
I like her myself, but there’s better material. 
. . . Other things aside, I don’t want my boy 
to marry a girl who plays cards the way she 
does.” 

“ Jacob! You don’t mean ” 

“ No, no ! She’s as square as a die ; but she 
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Japonette 


wins too much, stakes too much — smokes too 
much, drinks too many cocktails — she and her 
sister, too. Why, they’ve won steadily at 
cards from the beginning. They’ve a genius 
for it. / never saw such playing. ' Poor cards 
don’t worry them; and they never take the 
shadow of advantage, never whine, never ask 
questions ; there’s never an impatient word, a 
look of protest — and the judge and the colonel 
are beasts to play with! — and if there ever 
seems to be the slightest doubt or indication 
of a dispute over any point, those girls in- 
stantly concede it — cheerfully, too! They’re 
clean-cut sports — thoroughbred. . . . But, by 
God! I don’t want Jack to marry a gam- 
bler!” 

He stood up, his glasses glistening, his little 
burned eyes fixed on space. 

“ No,” he said; “ I’ve done all the gambling 
that will be done in this family. “ I’ll do a 
little more — enough to put the bits on one or 
two men in New York whose wives could 
make it easy for my children, if they cared to. 
Then I’m done, mother.” 

She bent her head, and her lips moved. 

“ What ? ” he said, hand to his ear. 

“ I was only thinking, Jacob, that I would 


Pacta Convent a 


be happy when you have finished with — busi- 
ness.” 

“ Don’t worry, dear.” He put one arm 
around her — a thin arm in its loose coat sleeve, 
thin as a tempered steel rod. She laid her 
faded face against it, comforted by its in- 
flexibility. 

“ Some day,” she said, “ when the children 
are happy — with their families ” 

“Yes, yes,” he nodded; “a smaller house 
for you and me — just a little one.” He smiled; 
few people ever had seen him smile. “ Just 
a little house for two little old people,” he 
said ; “ only one horse to take us about, one 
servant to feed us — eh, Sarah ? ” 

She looked around her, smiling vaguely at 
the magnificence. 

“ I like to dust,” she said, coloring up pret- 
tily, “ and to make jelly. . . . I’ve wanted to 
a long while.” 

“You shall do it; I swear you shall. By 
God ! I’ll be glad when that chef is fired ! ” 

“ You know, Jacob,” she said timidly, “ with 
knitting and dusting and — and a little kitchen 
work — and you — the day passes very nicely.” 

“ Some day you’ll make some more of those 
crullers ! ” he predicted ; “ mark my words ! ” 
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Japonette 


“ And the cinnamon shells,” she added, 
slightly excited. 

“ Oh, Lord ! Why can’t that fool of a chef 
make ’em!” he burst out. “Well, I’ll wait. 
. . . It gives us something more to wait for, 
doesn’t it ? ” 

He laughed. Only his wife had ever heard 
the dry cackle which was his manifestation 
of mirth. 

Contented, she lifted her face, and he kissed 
her. 

He went to New York that evening to re- 
main over Wednesday as usual. 

In the small company remaining at Adriu- 
tha a certain intimacy had developed, enough 
to make any effort at entertainment su- 
perfluous. There was now a decided in- 
clination to laziness in the evening, and a 
preference for the billiard room and its easy 
informality. 

It was a big room with open fires and the 
inevitable trophies of somebody else’s chase 
— the heads of big game mounted, staring at 
nothing out of their glass eyes ; weapons of a 
vanished age on the oaken wainscoting, mod- 
ern guns in racks as well as cues, and leather 
132 


Pacta Conventa 


lounges and seats and wide-armed chairs 
'everywhere. 

Hither Mrs. Rivett now brought her em- 
broidery or knitting; and around her, within 
a radius more or less distant, the others gath- 
ered or circled in temporary orbits, and 
games were played and music made and youth 
flirted and age gossiped much as they did when 
.she was a young girl in Mills Corners, and her 
husband taught in the red schoolhouse next 
door. 

Sometimes Diana came and sat beside her 
and knitted a tie destined, she admitted, for 
nobody in particular ; sometimes Edgerton 
drew his chair beside hers and told her of 
.•student life in Paris — watching always for her 
delightfully timid smile, the shy laugh that she 
sometimes ventured, the curiously pretty flush 
that came at times into her cheeks, making 
them and the faded eyes almost beautiful. 

Once or twice it happened that Christine 
settled herself on a footstool on the other side 
of her mother to listen, too; and the little old 
lady experienced a furtive content with the 
situation as Edgerton and her daughter ex- 
changed pleasantries and volleys of gay badi- 
nage across her knitting. 

133 


Japonette 


But listen as demurely as she might, feign 
inattention and unconsciousness as she might, 
she could detect in neither her daughter nor 
in Edgerton any hint of a subtler understand- 
ing, any omen of anything for the future be- 
yond a frank camaraderie and the undisguised 
pleasure in it. 

And she sighed sometimes — not understand- 
ing, not venturing even to admit to herself the 
desire that was beginning to establish itself in 
her gentle breast. 

As for Edgerton and Christine, they were 
now on terms of intimacy almost careless* 
With Diana he was different. 

The day of his bitter outbreak when riding 
with Diana, Edgerton, terribly ashamed of 
himself, had gone once more to her and ad- 
mitted that her rebuke was a just one; that 
he was an ungrateful dog, disloyal to the hand 
that fed him, and not worthy of Diana’s re- 
gard. 

And the girl had forgiven him very sweetly, 
not with much enthusiasm, for his rapidly ad- 
vancing intimacy with Christine had begun to 
perplex her, nor could she exactly understand 
his apparently happy acquiescence in condi- 
tions lately so irritating. 

134 


Pacta Convent a 


Not that he neglected her; in his ami- 
able way he was charming to her and to Sil- 
vette; was often with them; drove, rode, 
walked with them ; and often, when the 
opportunity happened, met them in family con- 
clave to discuss future prospects for busi- 
ness. 

But his intimacy with Christine advanced 
very swiftly; so rapidly that Diana became 
fully aware of it only when it was already in 
complete flower. . . . And she wondered a 
little — and, looking at the girl, wondered less. 
Also, knowing Edgerton less than she sup- 
posed she did, the wonder as to his motive be- 
gan to trouble her. 

Whatever Diana really thought of Edger- 
ton, she did not think him unusually strong in 
character ; was not absolutely convinced of his 
sincerity — was not any too sure of his motives. 
Yet, to doubt him always hurt her, and to 
question his sincerity now made her ashamed 
of herself. But Christine Rivett was very, 
very rich, and the only thing she did not have 
was a name like Edgerton’s to insure her 
future for all time. Thinking of this, the girl 
was ashamed to think it, and put it resolutely 
from her mind ; but it returned at intervals, 
1 35 


Japonette 

even when he was most charming to her sister 
and herself. 

Meanwhile a silent but decisive little duel 
had been fought in her vicinity, and Jack Riv- 
ett definitely replaced Colonel Follis Curmew 
at Silvette’s side ; and that warrior, being un- 
familiar with the fortunes of war, first sulked, 
then began to appear frequently in Diana’s 
vicinity — sending out, as it were, pickets of 
observation and foraging parties, and finally 
appearing in superb force with warlike in- 
tentions not to be misunderstood, although 
Diana contrived entirely to misunderstand 
them. 

“ Do you know,” she said to Silvette one 
night as they were preparing for bed, “ I be- 
lieve that he is actually falling in love with 
me. 

He was; but, nevertheless, Diana entirely 
misunderstood him. 

And so the early summer days passed at 
Adriutha, and Edgerton, always prone to ac- 
commodate himself to circumstances, found it 
easier and easier to keep his pact with Mr. 
Rivett. 

Perhaps he was too easily colored by his 
136 


Pacta Conventa 


surroundings; for this place and these people 
— toward whom, under other circumstances, 
his instinct would have been antagonistic — 
were becoming very agreeable to him, and he 
had handy no standards of comparison from 
his own world — merely memories, which are 
always inadequate. 

He never became entirely reconciled to the 
architecture of Adriutha, but the interior mag- 
nificence disturbed him less and less; besides, 
he had very little real love for decoration, and 
knew little about its harmonies. All the art 
that was in him consisted in a cleverness and 
facility for expressing what was actually of 
slight importance. 

So he became amiably reconciled to his sur- 
roundings, to his own position. Probably the 
lack of responsibility and the pleasant idleness 
had much to do with it. 

Still, he really liked Jack Rivett and 
Christine. In prosperous days the chances 
would have been against his ever giving him- 
self the opportunity of liking them. But 
chance had taken charge of his career for the 
moment; he had met them, and liked them — 
was inclined to like Rivett senior, too, and 
began to experience a certain tenderness to- 

137 


Japonette 


ward his frail little hostess — something he had 
never noticed in himself since his mother’s 
death many years ago. 

For the others he had no particular feelings. 
He knew, without troubling himself to think 
about it, that Colonel Curmew was what his 
own friends would call a bounder ; and the re- 
maining guests were of no greater importance 
to him than strangers inclined to be civil. 

As for Silvette and Diana, they were not 
only kindred, and so to be automatically cher- 
ished, but they also were very charming and 
delightful young girls ; and Diana aroused his 
curiosity. 

During the first days of their acquaintance, 
the circumstances of his encounter with Di- 
ana had inclined him to sentiment. Now that 
had been merged into a nice friendship — a 
friendship so frank and pleasant that, in his 
idea, it permitted privileges of an intimacy 
which at first perplexed and disturbed Diana, 
and which, presently, she began to silently re- 
sent without exactly knowing why. 

What her ideas concerning Edgerton really 
were, she herself had not entirely decided. 
She had been as vividly conscious of the charm 
of their first encounter as had he; being a 
138 


Pacta Convent a 


woman, she still remembered it vividly, where- 
as, with him, it had dissolved into the mistiest 
of dream-tinted memories — charming, but 
vague. 

Too, she remembered his attitude toward 
her in those first three days in the studio — 
the golden magic of them, the little roof gar- 
den, the starlings, the sunset beyond the river. 
Under such circumstances, the things men say 
and look, men usually forget; but women re- 
member longer. 

Then she remembered, too, the first days of 
their arrival at Adriutha. . . . There was 
nothing in particular to recall — a note or two 
from her to him, from him to her. . . . Per- 
haps a something in his voice and eyes which, 
somehow, had died out since. . . . Yet, had 
it been anything in particular? And, grant- 
ing that it had, what had she done to encour- 
age it? 

She had fallen into the habit of thinking 
about these things in her bedroom while pre- 
paring for the night. She often thought, too, 
about this new friendship of his for Christine 
Rivett. It perplexed her, saddened, irritated 
her by turns, and it distressed her to even 
question his motives. 


139 


Japonette 


But Silvette said one evening, after they had 
undressed and the maid had left: 

“ Wouldn’t it be odd if Jim married that 
girl?” 

“ Married — her ? ” repeated Diana, startled 
out of a reverie not entirely happy. 

“ He’s becoming very attentive to her. She 
is pretty, of course,” Silvette smiled. 

” Why shouldn’t he marry her if he finds 
that he cares for her ? ” asked Diana with, 
some heat. 

“ I was merely surprised that he should care 
for her in that way. She is not his sort.” 

“ Sort ! sort ! What does that matter ! ” said 
Diana hotly. “ It never stopped a thorough- 
bred from mating. He can afford to love 
where he chooses, I fancy.” 

“ Or marry what he chooses, anyway.” 

“Silvie! Do 'you imagine he’d do a thing 
like that — not loving her ! ” 

“ I don’t know,” said Silvette coolly ; “ he’s 
a dear boy, and nice to us, but I don’t credit 
him with superhuman qualities. . . . And she 
inherits millions.” 

“ It isn’t in him to do it. . . . And there are 
plenty of his own sort who would be glad 
enough ” 


140 


Pacta Convent a 


“ Why do you become so animated, Di ? 
Have you noticed any particular strength of 
character in Jim Edgerton?” 

“Yes. . . . He is as true as steel, under- 
neath the amiable exterior of a drifter and 
dilettante. . . . He has ideals. ... I am not 
one of them — I know that.” 

“ Do you care particularly ? ” 

“No. . . . I don’t know whether I do or 
not. ... I never seem to know what to say 
to him these days. We talk together like two 
men. I’d like to know what he thinks about 
me — the kind of woman I am, compared to 
others in his own set. . . . I’d like to know 
what he thinks about my gambling and cock- 
tails and cigarettes, which you and I have got 
to stop! What he really thinks of our posi- 
tion in this house — in the world ! I don’t be- 
lieve he thinks much of it.” 

“ Does his position differ from ours ? ” 
asked Silvette gently ; “ why are you so ex- 
cited, little sister ? ” 

“ I’m not excited. . . . Things — various 
matters have occurred to me — recently; and 
I’ve made up my mind that I don’t like to see 
him here. This is no place for him, no posi- 
tion. He is capable of doing better things, 

141 


Japonette 


more important things, nobler things. He 
slips into a life like this too easily; he is too 
•easily reconciled, too quickly content.” 

Silvette seated herself on a rocking chair 
and, leaning back, sat rocking and inspecting 
her sister, who stood by the bed, her brown 
locks clustering against her cheeks. 

“ There is something to Jim,” she insisted. 

He can do things — respectable, dignified 
things — and make his living. It humiliates 
me to see him here in such a capacity ” 

“ As ours ? ” added Silvette, smiling. 

“ Yes, as ours. He is a man, and it does 
not become him.” 

“ We are respectively physician and lawyer, 
but our talents and fortunes lie in this pro- 
fession.” 

Diana flushed. “If we were anything ex- 
cept the frivolous, ease-loving, and pleasure- 
craving little beasts that we are, we wouldn’t 
h>e here.” 

“No; we’d starve, respectably, in our sev- 
eral offices. Do you want Jim to starve? ” 

“ I don’t know,” said Diana, almost fiercely; 
“ I’d rather see him in want, I think, than do- 
ing this kind of thing.” 

“ I don’t believe he will do it very long — 
142 


Pacta Convent a 


on a salary,” laughed Silvette. “ Christine 
evidently adores him.” 

Diana was silent; her sister laughed, and 
rose, putting one arm around her. 

“ Don’t be sentimental over Jim Edgerton,” 
she said ; “ he is a lightweight, Di.” 

“You are wrong; and I am not senti- 
mental.” 

“ Well, I believe you did get over it ; but 
you’re a loyal and generous little thing, 
Di, and you’re worrying over a man who 
is entirely capable of looking out for him- 
self.” 

“ That’s what I want him to do.” 

“ He’s doing it, very gracefully. Later, 
with equal and fetching grace he’ll let some 
wealthy girl do it for him.” 

“ That would be contemptible ; he isn’t.” 

“ Now, does the world so consider an ad- 
vantageous marriage, little sister? Besides, 
that is exactly what we have planned for our- 
selves, isn’t it?” 

“ We? What are zve, anyway, compared to 
a man who can count in the world ! ” flashed 
out Diana, surprised at her own vehemence, 
aware that her sister was even more aston- 
ished and chagrined. 


143 


Japonette 


“ What on earth are you saying ?” she 
exclaimed. “ Are you in love with that 
man?” 

“ No.” 

“ One might infer as much.” 

“ You may infer it if you choose.” • 

“ Di ! ” 

" What?” 

“ Why do you speak to me that way ? ” 

“ Because — I don’t — know.” 

She turned and moved toward the bed, en- 
countered the soft, open arms of her sister. 
They closed around her; she laid her head on 
Silvette’s shoulder. 

“ Darling ! Little Di ! ” whispered Silvette 
in sorrowful consternation. “ Has this really 
happened to you ? ” 

“ I don’t know — I don’t know. ... I am 
not happy; I don’t understand. ... At mo- 
ments I cannot believe it. . . . He is not my 
ideal of a man; I am stronger in many ways 
— I am wiser than he. He is only a boy, Sil- 
vie — careless, ease loving, with nothing but 
smatterings — nothing but the social experience 
of a man of his class behind him. Nothing 
real has ever happened to him in life. . . . 
And, somehow, I know — I know that if it only 
144 


Pacta Convent a 


did, he would become a man — a real man. I 
know it ; I can’t bear to see him waste his life 
— fall into easy ways of thinking — make no 
effort. ... I want him to strive; I want him 
to fight life. . . . He ought to. The making 
of him is in a battle with circumstances. This 
life is ruin to him — this house, these people, 
any people who will employ him in such a 
capacity ! ” 

She caught her breath, almost in a sob. 

“ I have cared for him — a little — from the 
very first. ... I am not — fitted for him — in 
many ways.” 

“ Di ! ” 

“ I am not! I care for him unselfishly. I 
don’t know why I should, but I do ; and he 
ought not to marry me even if he — ever — 
wished to.” 

“You are talking wildly, darling! You — 
not good enough for him ! What a silly ” 

“ Not good enough, I tell you ! ” repeated 
the girl fiercely. “ I care too much for what 
he finds agreeable — all this ease and relaxa- 
tion. ... I wish I were different. I wish I 
could arouse him; I’d do it. I’d do it some- 
how — I’d do it now if I could ” 

She caught her breath, stood perfectly mo- 

145 


Japonette 


tionless a moment, then Silvette felt her trem- 
ble slightly. 

After a while she lifted her head from her 
sister’s shoulder. 

“ I am going to do what I can for him,” 
she said excitedly. “ I am going to see what 
can be done to arouse the man in him. All 
he needs is the initial shock — a — a stinging 
one.” 

“What do you mean? If there was any- 
thing in him, the shock of the firm’s failure 
would have brought it out.” 

“ It was not enough. It was only the loss 
of money! There are worse things ” 

“ Di ! What are you going to do ? ” 

Suddenly the girl’s face grew radiant. 

“ I know now,” she said breathlessly. 

“ What?” 

But Diana only kissed her sister, laughing, 
flushed, excited, and, extending her arm, 
turned off the light, plunging the room and 
her brilliant cheeks in darkness. 


CHAPTER VII 


€f 


FLOS VENERIS 

DGERTON and Christine, ensconced 
in the corners of a window seat, and 
partly visible through the leaded panes, were 
too deeply absorbed in each other to be aware 
of the curious glances shot toward them from 
.the tennis court outside, where Silvette, Colo- 
nel Curmew, Mrs. Lorrimore, and Jack Rivett 
were playing, while Diana, perched aloft with 
her knitting in the umpire’s seat, resolutely 
ignored the spectacle in the window, which 
was plainer to her than to anybody else. 

Perfectly oblivious to any extraneous in- 
terest they aroused, sitting almost nose to nose 
and knee to knee in the deep recess, Christine 
and Edgerton remained in close consultation, 
preoccupied, possibly indifferent to view or 
comment. Christine bent forward, and drew 
a carnation through his buttonhole, saying: 

“ Anyway, you are a perfect dear, Jim Ed-. 

147 


Japonette 


gerton. Somehow or other, I haven’t any 
blushes for what I’ve taken so many weeks to 
tell you. I never thought I could know any- 
body well enough to say such a thing to, but 
you are different ; there’s nobody like you, 
Jim. Do you wonder I adore you? ” 

“ You sweet little thing, I’ve a mind to kiss 
you for that ! ” 

“ I may let you at the psychological mo- 
ment. . . . Do you think me absolutely 
shameless? — but I’ve asked you that before 
about a dozen times. ... You don't think so, 
do you ? ” 

“If other women displayed the common 
honesty and common sense that you display, 
there’d be a good deal less unhappiness in the 
world.” 

“ But how can other women, when there 
is only one Jim Edgerton! Oh, I liked you 
so much — as soon as I saw you ; and before I 
had known you a week, I was ready to tell 
you anything — and now I’ve done it ! ” 

“ It took several weeks before you came to 
the point,” he said, laughing. 

“ I know, but, oh ! it was such a terrible 
thing to do ! — I don’t even now understand 
how I ever came to tell you.” 

148 


Flos Veneris 


“ You didn’t; I extracted it, seeing that you 
were in pain.” 

She blushed. 

“ Yes, it was pain. ... Not one of my own 
family suspected it. Father doesn’t dream of 
such a thing; Jack doesn’t, of course. As for 
dear little mother, you know what she thinks 
about you and me.” 

Edgerton smiled almost tenderly. 

“ She is very nice to me,” he said. “ I al- 
most wish I could verify her charming theory.” 

“ Concerning us?” 

“ Certainly. ... As it is, I believe I’m 
more than half in love with you, anyway, 
Christine.” 

She blushed again, looking at him with her 
pretty, frank, brown eyes; and they both 
laughed happily. 

“ It’s the first time in all my life that I’ve 
been of any use in the world,” he said. 

“You did ask father?” she inquired, still 
charmingly flushed ; “ didn’t you ? ” 

“ I certainly did. He said : ‘ Is young In- 
wood such a particular friend of yours?’ I 
said : ‘ He is ! ’ He said : ‘ All right ; ask my 
wife.’ So I asked your mother, and she said: 
* Oh, please, Mr. Edgerton, invite anybody you 
149 


Japonette 


wish to.’ So I wrote Billy Inwood, and your 
bully little mother inclosed my letter in the 
sweetest note of her own ; and now he has 
telegraphed ” 

“ Telegraphed? ” 

“ I’ve just received the message.” 

He fished it out of his coat pocket, and 
handed it to her, and she read : 

“ On my way ! 

“ Bill.” 

“ Is that all? ” she asked, half laughing, half 
excited. 

“ He telegraphed your mother the substance 
of a moderate-sized letter. She’s probably in 
her room now, reading it. She showed it to 
me in amazement, but I didn’t have time to 
follow all his polite and grateful meander- 
ings.” 

“ I wish to see it ! ” said the girl excitedly. 

“ Go ahead ; your mother has it. I was 
anxious to let you know how matters had 
turned out, first.” 

“You’re a dear!” she repeated, and her 
voice was not any too steady. “ I am happy ; 
I am happier than I’ve been for — ” She 

150 


Flos Veneris 


checked herself, and bent her head for a 
moment; he pretended to reread the tele- 
gram. 

u It will be all right now/’ he observed. 

“ I wish I knew/’ she said under her breath. 

“ Don’t you ? ” 

She lifted her honest eyes to his. 

“ How can I know, Jim? I don’t know how 
men are. It all happened over a year ago. 
... I was no wiser than a schoolgirl. What 
experience had I — with such episodes — such 
conditions — or with anything?” 

“ You did act like a schoolgirl — to send him 
about his business,” said Edgerton with a 
shrug. 

“ I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t — hadn’t ” 

“ Cared for him ? ” 

“ Loved him,” she said steadily. 

“You’re a corker, Christine!” he said in 
genuine admiration. 

“ Am I ? Thank you, Jim.” 

“Yes, you are; and so is Billy Inwood — 
the real Billy. Young men like to chase about 
with married women. They love to delude 
themselves into the pleasing belief that they 
are sad dogs ” 

“ There was more to it than that,” said the 
151 


Japonette 


girl ; “ he went to Keno to see her. That is 
what confounded me.” 

“ While she was getting her divorce ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then you can bet that there was nothing 
in it, you little goose. . . . Who was she, any- 
way ? ” 

“ A Mrs. Atherstane. Do you know her? ” 

“ No,” said Edgerton ; “ and you certainly 
did act like a schoolgirl.” 

“ I know I did, and I was twenty. ... I 
asked him to come to Hot Springs; she re- 
quested him to go to Keno. He took his 
choice; he had a perfect right to. . . . And 
then I wrote him that letter, dismissing 
him.” 

“ Ought never to have done it, sweetness,” 
said Edgerton gravely. “ There are no fet- 
ters to hold a man like absolute freedom. He 
was probably bound to her in various ways, 
innocently enough, of course; but she was 
probably lonely and in trouble — and — noblesse 
oblige. I tell you a young man has to pay for 
sympathizing with an unhappily married wom- 
an! And she usually sees that he does.” 

Christine sat back, nursing her knees, eyes 
downcast. 


152 


Flos Veneris 


“ He was right,” she said. “ She was his 
friend.” 

“ Perhaps he was more right than you real- 
ize, Christine. When a man’s man friend is 
battered and used up, the man still clings to 
him — anyway, until he borrows money; but 
when his woman friend becomes slightly the 
worse for wear, he is inclined to discard her 
as naively as he would a worn-out coat. That 
is the rule — romance to the contrary. . . . In- 
wood proved the exception, that’s all.” 

“ Yes,” said the girl in a low voice. 

“ He proved the exception to me, too,” said 
Edgerton, smiling. 

“ To you , Jim?” 

“ Certainly ; wanted to lend me money when 
I arrived in town on my uppers.” 

The girl smiled. 

“ Oh, he’s all right,” said Edgerton ; “ I’ve 
known him since he was six and I twelve.” 

“ He — is — all — right,” repeated Christine 
slowly ; “ but — am I, Jim ? ” 

“ You know you are — kleine Fischerin! ” 

“ But I wrote him that wretched letter. If 
it hurt him as it hurt me — ” She ceased 
abruptly, and turned her face toward the 
window. 


153 


Japonette 


“ You were years younger, then.” 
u One year,” tremulously. 

“ Years, sweetness. . . . Do you think your 
father will ever stand for him ? ” 

“ He scarcely knows him. He did not un- 
derstand why Mr. Inwood never came to Hot 
Springs, or why I never again saw him. Prob- 
ably he supposes I lost interest.” 

“ So your father believes that you are all 
over that affair, doesn’t he ? ” 

“ Yes; but he probably remembers that Mr. 
Inwood was to have come to Hot Springs, 
and didn’t. Fathers usually remember such 
things, and sometimes ask why.” 

“ Well, Christine,” he said, smiling, “ you’ll 
have to fix it with your father; and I think 
you can.” 

“ Why do you think so ? ” 

“ Because there is much of your father in 
you — steel under the velvet skin of that pretty 
figure, or I miss my guess.” 

The girl said thoughtfully : “ I am, perhaps, 
more like father than Jack is. . . . That is 
not really what concerns me. . . . Has Mr. 
Inwood changed — in appearance ? ” 

" Within a year? No! Nor otherwise, I’ll 
wager.” 


154 


Flos Veneris 


“ Do you — think ” 

“ I don’t know ; I don’t know, little girl. 
Men are protean creatures; God knows what 
incarnation they’ll assume next! . . . But if 
a woman really cares for a man, and if he 
isn’t in love with anybody else, it ought to be 
a cinch — even if he had as many incarnations 
as Albert Chevallier ! ” 

“ Jim ! ” 

“ Well, I know my sex,” he said ; “ the 
cleverest of them are boobs in the hands of 
yours ” 

“ Jim ! You are becoming horrid ! ” 

“ That means I’m becoming truthful. Hoo- 
ray ! I see Bill’s happy finish.” He picked up 
her soft little hand and kissed it. “ Velvet 
and steel,” he said — “ the hand that rocks the 
world! Yes? No? Good-by, you little 
wretch! I’m going canoeing with my cousin 
Diana.” 

“ Did you say that mother has that tele- 
gram ? ” she asked naively, sliding from the 
window-sill to the floor. 

“ Yes ; and it’s a mile long — a bally serial, 
Christine — to be continued this evening, I ex- 
pect.” 

They clasped hands at the threshold; then 

155 


Japonette 


she ran upstairs, and he sauntered out to the 
tennis court, where Diana still sat on her high 
perch knitting the silken tie, although below 
her the game had ended and the players had 
gone to the terrace for iced tea. 

“Well, of all pretty monuments!” he ex- 
claimed. “ You have the other one on the 
Madison Square tower beaten to a froth ! ” 

“ Beware of my arrows,” she said, smiling, 
as the wind blew her scarf into a silvery arc 
from her shoulders. 

“Arrows? No, I’m wrong; you look like 
the Angel of the Central Park Fountain.” 

“ I feel like the dickens,” she said, folding 
her knitting and descending the steps. 

“ Headache ? ” 

“ No ; I merely sat up too late, and I’m 
sleepy. It’s perfectly horrid that you can’t 
stop when you’re winning. . . . What did you 
wish me to do, Jim — canoe with you ? ” 

“ I thought you wanted to.” 

“ Is that why you asked me?” 

“ I wanted to, also. Why do you always 
put me in wrong, Diana ? ” 

“ Tim, do I put you in wrong, as you call 
it?” 

“ Sometimes.” 


156 


Flos Veneris 


“ Well, it’s horrid of me. Forgive me. I 
do try to be such good friends with you, and 
somehow I don't succeed.” 

“ You — we are good friends,” he said ; “ you 
know perfectly well how I feel about you.” 

They had walked as far as the river’s edge, 
where several green-hulled canvas canoes lay 
on the grass. 

“ Suppose we walk,” she said ; “ shall we ? 
I’m too lazy to paddle. I’m sleepy, Jim. A 
walk ought to wake me up.” 

“ I know a ledge where you can take a cat 
nap,” he said. “ Accept forty winks from me, 
and we’ll paddle afterwards.” 

So they strolled along the river path, fra- 
grant with mint and vine and blossom ; and 
presently the cool green of the woods envel- 
oped them, and their feet pressed the moist, 
springy leaves of a forest path that led over 
little brooks and up a slope of young growth, 
all checkered with sun spots, to a vast over- 
hanging ledge of rocks. 

“ Just look at that moss ! ” exclaimed Diana. 
“ I believe I’ll sit down on it this minute. Jim, 
do sit down. It’s like velvet, and there’s miles 
of it; and here is the most enchanting silver 
birch tree for my back to rest on, and some 
157 


Japonette 


wood lilies to look at. . . . Isn’t this heav- 
enly ! ” 

“ Out of sight,” he said lazily, stretching 
himself at her feet and glancing up at her. 
“ Go ahead with your cat nap. I’ll time you 
half an hour.” 

After a moment he laughed, and her eye- 
brows went up in a silent question. 

He said : “ I never noticed it before. It’s 
odd.” 

“ Noticed what? ” 

“ How funny they are in outline — your eyes, 
I mean.” 

“ Thank you, Jim.” 

“ Oh, they’re most engaging eyes, Diana.” 

“ More thanks, thank you ! ” 

“I mean that they tip up a trifle — just a 
trifle, Japonette.” 

“ They don’t ! ” 

“ They do. Like a pretty Japanese girl’s. 
Only yours are blue. . . . They’re very 
blue — unusually — like the sky — that sort of 
blue.” 

“ Young man,” she said with mock serious- 
ness, “ don’t you know what comes of specu- 
lating in ladies’ eyes?” 

“ Bankruptcy of the heart,” he nodded. 

158 


Flos Veneris 


“ Then choose some safer and preferred 
stock, please.” 

He lay smiling up at her, watching the 
shades of expression varying in her youthful 
face — watching the delicate shape of her 
mouth, which had always fascinated him with 
its unspoiled purity. 

“ Do you know,” he said, partly to himself, 
“ that when I first set eyes on you, Japonette, 
I knew I had never seen anything half as 
beautiful.” 

“ You didn’t think so long,” she returned, 
laughing. “ Christine is goddess of beauty 
just now.” 

“ I have always thought so,” he repeated. 

“ Then— why don’t you ever say it to me ? ” 

His smile changed a little. 

“ What would be the use of my telling you 
that you are beautiful?” 

“ Use?” 

“ What good would it do for me to become 
sentimental over your beauty ? ” 

“ Lots of good — to me, Jim. You can’t tell 
a girl too often that she is pretty — when you 
really think so. . . . And I almost believe you 
do think so.” She glanced at him sideways, 
laughed a little, then her blue eyes wandered 
159 


Japonette 


and she leaned back, pensive, twisting a green 
oak leaf between idle fingers. 

“ Do you know,” he said after a moment, 
“ that, just now, you are like Japonette again. 
I haven’t seen you so like the real Japonette 
for a long while.” 

“ How can I be Japonette again? I lack 
the sandals and butterfly sash and the peonies 
over my ears, Jim. And — that was about all 
you saw in Japonette, wasn’t it?” 

“ Almost all. Her face was only a shadowy 
flower against the sunshine, and its enchant' 
ment turned the world to fairyland.” 

“Alas ! the spell was temporary. The vic- 
tim of my spells fled to the roof, and told me 
stories about starlings and — and children. . . . 
But, somehow, I let him get away from me, 
and I don’t know how to find him again.” 

Edgerton watched her. She had plaited a 
sash out of green oak leaves and fitted it 
around her slender waist; and now, absently, 
she was placing in her hair, above each little 
close-set ear, a scarlet wood lily. 

Presently she caught his eye, and made him 
a pretty gesture. 

“ You see I am trying my best to return 
with you to yesterday. ... It is a long path 
160 


H. 





Presently she caught his eye, and made him a pretty gesture. 





Flos Veneris 


— back over the hours and minutes to yester- 
day, back to a land of dreamy suns and for- 
gotten skies, and unremembered thoughts. 
. . . Shall I try to guide you ? ” 

“ Yes,” he said, not smiling. 

“We may lose our way among the phan- 
toms,” she warned him gayly; then became 
preternaturally solemn, resting her chin in one 
hand. 

Her seriousness enchanted him — her youth- 
ful grace as she bent slightly above him, one 
warning finger uplifted as when a nurse speaks 
of mysteries to a child in the quiet of twi- 
light. 

“ Join hands with me in spirit, and Til try 
to lead you,” she said. . . . “ Now, follow 
me, while we make our way through the 
throng of strange faces, treading a path si- 
lently, discreetly, avoiding this pretty girl with 
her bright brown eyes.” 

“ Christine,” he thought, and started to 
speak. 

“ Hush ! ” she cautioned him ; “ for we 
mustn’t speak yet — not until we’re in the land 
of yesterday. . . . And we are passing over 
the minutes and hours and days and weeks — 
and it’s like treading on formless mist; so 
161 


Japonette 


hold tightly to my hand, and follow me — 
through a golden ballroom, around a great 
gilded piano, then out into the June rain, Jim. 

. . . Have you let go my hand ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Then we are very near the land of yes- 
terday. ... I thought I heard a starling 
whistle. Surely ! and there is the sunset over 
the river — and now we are in the house, Jim. 
And it is not sunset, after all ; it is sunrise — 
the sunburst of Japan! And there, against 
it ” 

“ You ! ” he said in a voice not very firm. 

“ Hush ! Those two figures we see are only 
phantoms. Let us stand here by the door and 
listen to what they might have said.” 

“ They did say things ! ” 

“ Ah ! but it is to what they might have 
said that we must try to listen. Be very 
silent, now. Look at that girl in her silk 
and sandals and the flowers in her hair ! 
Look at that young fellow, rooted to the 
floor, amazed at the apparition ! Can you 
hear what he might have said to her in his 
astonishment ? ” 

“ He might have said : ‘ Your loveliness con- 
founds me. You are the most beautiful vision , 
162 


Flos Veneris 


I have ever dreamed/ . . . What does she 
say, Japonette? ” 

“ She says : ‘ For a moment I was afraid 
you’d filled your suit cases with our silver; 
but you are so obviously nice that I am not 
alarmed any more. I’m merely ashamed to 
be caught here in this theatrical dress.’ What 
might he have said to that, Jim?” 

“ He might have said : ‘ Is it a heavenly pos- 
sibility that you are real, and not a vision? 
Allah is merciful to the believer in dreams. 
Your name is Youth and Beauty; I will call 
you Japonette, but the high white gods have 
named you Diana.’ . . . And what does she 
say, Japonette?” 

“ She might have answered : * O youth with 
the engaging smile, out of my breast you have 
charmed the winged heart, and it is fluttering 
there above you, restless, uncertain — just be- 
yond your reach.’ . . . And what does — might 
he have answered, Jim?” 

“ He might have said : * I love you, but my 
outward self does not know it yet — will not 
know it, even on the roof garden — even when 
the sun hangs low and the starlings pipe, and 
all the west is a glory of gold and rose; and 
I shall never know it until you lead me back 


Japonette 


from to-morrow, through the magic path of 
days and hours, to the true world of yester- 
day/ . . . What answer does she make, 
Diana?” 

His voice had grown very unsteady; he lay 
there looking at her, the smile stamped on his 
lips. And her faint smile had become fixed, 
too. 

“ She made no answer,” said Diana. 

“ She might have. . . . Remember, all this 
is what they might have said.” 

“ And did not. ... I don’t know what she 
might have said.” . . . Suddenly she flung 
the green sash of leaves from her body, tore 
the scarlet wood lilies from her hair, and flung 
them away with a gay, little laugh. 

“ What an idle, silly pair we are,” she said. 
“ I’ve had my nap. I’m awake, now.” 

“ Was all that a dream? ” 

“ You know it was. ... It began with a 
fable — which sent me off to sleep.” 

“ It ended in truth — and an awakening — for 
one of us.” 

“ Jim, you’re not pretending to be serious, 
are you ? Goodness ! ” she added impatiently ; 
“ can’t I pretend with you, and not be misun- 
derstood ? ” 


Flos Veneris 


He sat up, sprang to his feet, and began to 
pace the moss. 

She, resting against the silver birch, watched 
him, already a little frightened, her heart be- 
ginning to beat high and fast. 

Suddenly he came back and, resting on one 
knee, bent over beside her. 

“ Did you mean nothing of that? Noth - 

ing ?” 

“ Nothing; why should you be silly enough 
to suppose ” 

“ I did suppose for a moment.” 

“ Jim, you are not pretending to court me, 
are you ? ” 

“ Not pretending. ... No, I’m not doing 
it. . . . How can a beggar think of such a 
thing as courtship ? ” 

“ Beggars court most ardently — sometimes,” 
she said, laughing tremulously. “ But it’s not 
hearts they usually court.” 

He knelt there, thinking a moment, head 
bent. Then he looked up at her. 

“ I have no reason to believe that you care 
for me,” he said — “ more than for any other 
man, I mean.” 

“ You have no reason to believe so,” she re- 
peated, now thoroughly alarmed at what she’d 


Japonette 


done ; and yet it was what she had deliberately 
set out to do. Her breath came unevenly. She 
strove to retain her composure, to recover the 
ground he seemed to have gained. 

“ Jim,” she said, “ you are too easily af- 
fected by your surroundings. A few trees, a 
summer sky, and a girl are destruction to 
you.” 

“ You don’t think that,” he said quietly. 

“ I do, indeed. Witness my fate, and the 
plight of Christine.” 

He said, watching her : “ Do you suppose 
that there is any sentimentality between 
Christine Rivett and me ? ” 

“ Oh, Jim ! don’t shuffle ” 

“ She is in love with another man,” he said. 

“ Nonsense ! ” But a strange thrill shot 
through and through her, and, confused, she 
bent forward, looking him straight in the face. 

“ Diana ! Diana ! ” he said under his breath, 
“ did you care ? ” 

“ I ? ” she said, reddening. “ Jim, I am not 
a baby. ... I thought — as everybody thought 
— but it was of no consequence — except that 
she is a sweet girl, and you are my friend.” 

She recovered herself with a little laugh — 
or would have, had his hand not closed on 
1 66 


Flos Veneris 


hers. She gave it a friendly and vigorous 
pressure, and attempted to drop it; but he 
placed the other hand over it, inclosing her 
slender fingers, which frightened her into pre- 
tense of unconsciousness. 

Now she stood on the threshold. Now she 
was on the eve of that daybreak from which 
she had prayed that the shadows might flee 
away; and she shrank from the coming light, 
afraid, while dawn threatened her with what, 
as yet, she had left undone. And even 
through the confused sense of expectancy and 
consternation ran a fierce flame of happiness. 

Then, unable to endure it longer, she flung 
the mask from her, facing the tempest she had 
sown. 

“ Let me go, Jim,” she said in a colorless 
voice. 

But he held her hand closely imprisoned, 
and the next moment her body. The rapid 
racket of her heart seemed to stifle her; she 
tried to speak — lay inert, crushed against his 
shoulder, dumb, scarlet, under his kiss. 

“ I love you,” he said ; “ I’ve always loved 
you. . . . I’m a blackguard to say it — penni- 
less nobody that I am — without much chance 
to be anything else, apparently. But I say it 

167 


Japonette 


for better or worse. ... I love you. You 
like me, but you think lightly of me. . . . 
With sufficient reason, God knows. . . . And 
I have no right to touch you — no right in 
decency or law, Diana.” 

She forced herself away from him, but, 
somehow, held his hands clasped convulsively 
in hers. 

“ You — shouldn’t have kissed me,” she man- 
aged to say. “ You mustn’t do it again — 
ever.” 

He laid his face against their clasped hands ; 
her own tightened. 

“ Nevertheless,” he said, “ I love you.” 

“ You mustn’t speak that way — ” She 
dropped her flushed face; he lifted it, and 
kissed her again. 

When he released her, she leaned back 
against the silver birch, head lowered, silent 
— and did not move her hands from the moss 
as he bent and kissed them, too. 

When at last she found her voice, she spoke 
so low that he bent his head closer to listen. 

“ That is the one imprudence I have never 
before committed — contact with any man. . . . 
You must not do it to me again. ... I don’t 
know how to take it. I cant love you. You 
1 68 


Flos Veneris 


know that.” She looked up at him. “ Don't 
you know it ? ” 

“ Yes,” he said stubbornly. 

“You do know that I can't; don't you? 
And that you cannot really love me ? ” 

“ I suppose it ought to be that way ; but it 
isn t. 

And now the moment had come to make 
her desire a certainty — and finish what she had 
set herself to do — for this man’s sake. She 
said : 

“ You can’t care for me, Jim ! What am 
I anyway? A shallow, pleasure-loving no- 
body, who sells her frivolous social gifts be- 
cause it is pleasanter and easier to make a liv- 
ing that way than to exercise a decent 
profession. How can such a man as you really 
fall in love with such a woman ? ” 

She rose to her feet and stood leaning 
against the tree; and he rose, too, releasing 
her fingers. 

She touched her hair, passed her hands 
slowly over her eyes, let them fall idly by her 
side ; then, after a moment, looked up at him, 
faintly smiling. 

“Melodrama is no use, is it?” she said. 
“You are not impressed by it; I can’t act it. 
169 


Japonette 


Life is less serious than the stage. Shall we 
come back together along the road to yester- 
day, and find our old, safe footing? . . . And 
- — shall I forgive you what you’ve done this 
summer day ? ” 

“ I want you to marry me,” he said between 
compressed lips. “ I’ll make good, yet.” 

“ What ! ” she exclaimed in apparent amaze- 
ment. “You!” 

“ Will you marry me ? ” 

How she forced the light laughter she never 
understood ; and she saw her gayety bring the 
blood to his face like a whip lash. 

“ Marry ! No, I won’t marry you,” she 
laughed. “ Mercy on the man ! Does he sup- 
pose I wish to marry a professional enter- 
tainer? — a generally useful gentleman — a big, 
strong, healthy, well-built, intelligent fellow, 
too indolent to rouse himself and make a re- 
spectable living? — too self-indulgent to start 
in a manly career and fight the world — take it 
by the throat and shake a decent living out of 
its sinful old pockets ? ” 

A deeper flush of astonishment and morti- 
fication swept his face, settling to the roots of 
his hair. 

She did not seem to notice it or his silence. 
170 


Flos Veneris 


“ Nonsense,” she laughed ; “ a girl, with any 
humor, simply couldn't love such a man, even 
if she wanted to, Jim. Because, how can she 
respect him? . . . You’re a dear, generous 
fellow — nice to everybody, perfectly sweet to 
Silvette and to me, and I do like you — even 
love you, in a certain sense — and I didn’t really 
mind being kissed any more than as though 
Silvette had done it. But I’m simply not 
fashioned to lose my head over a man who is 
hired by the month to be socially pleasant.” 
She laughed again, and laid her hand care- 
lessly on his arm ; and under her touch she felt 
it was rigid and hard as iron. 

“You see, don’t you?” she said sweetly. 
“ You’re not grown up yet, Jim. It takes 
more than you yet are to satisfy me.” 

He managed to force his voice out of his 
quivering throat. 

“ You’re right,” he said. “ I didn’t know 
what I was talking about. You are worth try- 
ing for.” 

They turned away together ; she slipped one 
hand confidently through his arm, leaning on 
him lightly as they walked. 

“ You’re not hopelessly offended, are you, 
Jim?” 


171 


Japonette 


“ No — good God, no.” 

“ I’d love you if I could,” she said sooth- 
ingly, “ but the instincts of mating with any- 
thing resembling servitude are wanting in me. 
Besides, two slaves are enough for one fam- 
ily — Silvette and I. ... You are not hurt or 
angry at my very horrid frankness ? ” 

“ No. . . . What you said is all right.” He 
lifted his eyes and looked his punishment 
squarely in the face ; and her heart failed her, 
so that she turned her head swiftly, the tears 
stinging her throat. 

They walked soberly on through the 
meadow up to the house. She gave him her 
hand at parting; then went leisurely to her 
room to dress for dinner. 

And Silvette found her there alone on her 
knees beside the window, partly undressed, her 
head buried in her arms, the brown locks clus- 
tering against her pale and tear-stained face. 

“ Diana ! ” she exclaimed softly. “ What is 
the matter, child ? ” 

The girl got up wearily, keeping her face 
out of the flood of light from the electric 
brackets. 

“ Nothing much,” she said; “ Fve only been 
very horrid to Jim.” 

172 


Flos Veneris 


“ I thought you were going to be kinder,” 
said Silvette, astonished. 

“ I have been ; but he doesn’t know it.” 

Her sister stood silent, looking at her with 
sorrowful eyes. 

“ Don’t sympathize with me ; I — I can’t bear 
it, Silvie.” 

“ No — if you don’t wish it, dear. . . . Shall 
I fix your bath ? . . . And — zvho do you sup- 
pose is downstairs ? ” 

Diana looked up inquiringly. 

“ The man you flirted with so outrageously 
at Keno!” 

“ Which ? ” asked Diana naively. 

“ Billy Inwood ! ” 

Diana brightened a little. 

“ At least,” she said with sad satisfaction, 
“ I can occupy my mind with him for a while. 
He got away before he was thoroughly dis- 
ciplined. I believe there was another girl 
somewhere. ... I think I’ll obliterate her — 
unless I approve of her. There’s the making 
of a man in that boy, Silvette.” 

But she decided otherwise a few moments 
before dinner was announced, when Inwood 
made his appearance in the drawing-room and 
greeted his hostess. Then, catching sight of 

173 


Japonette 


her, he came hastily toward her with both 
hands outstretched. 

“ Diana!” he exclaimed; “isn’t this jolly 1 
I’m terribly glad to see you again. . . And 
Silvette! Oh, this is simply too delightful! 
I ” 

Speech stopped, perhaps froze on his lips; 
then he turned fiery red as he stepped for- 
ward to greet Mrs. Wemyss. A year ago she 
had been a comparatively slim and pretty 
divorcee; to-day even the embarrassing opu- 
lence and prodigality of her charms had not 
altered the doll-like perfection of her features. 
He knew her instantly, and, in his brain, chaos 
menaced him. 

“ How do you do,” he said ; “ this is most 
delightful and surprising. Lilly ” 

“ Charming,” murmured Mrs. Wemyss; 
and, under her smile, she lowered her voice: 
“ I’m Lilly Wemyss ; I’ve taken my maiden 
name. Don’t forget, and call me Mrs. Ather- 
stane.” 

He nodded, the fixed smile imprinted on his 
features ; and it remained there as they stood 
in conversation until dinner was announced. 

He took in Christine. The girl’s arm rested 
lightly as a feather on his sleeve. During din- 
174 


Flos Veneris 


ner she talked to him pleasantly, but without 
animation ; and, somehow, all seemed to go 
wrong with him, for he found scarcely any- 
thing to say to Christine — anything that was 
not trite and banal. And his haunted eyes 
reverted again and again to Mrs. Wemyss. 

“ Oh, Lord ! ” he thought, “ what a horrible 
mess; and is Lilly going to expect me to — 


But his scared wits could speculate no far- 
ther, and he sat beside Christine, worried, un- 
happy, penitent, too miserable to enjoy the 
moment to which he had looked forward so 
impetuously all day long — a moment which, 
two days ago, he dared not believe would ever 
again come into his life. 


CHAPTER VIII 


MILLE MODI VENERIS 


| * NUMBER of matters had been 
(JULi slightly disturbing Colonel Cur- 
mew’s intellect and digestion. One thing, he 
had lost money at cards — a thing he hated as 
heartily as Judge Wicklow hated it. Another 
matter — Jack Rivett had fairly driven him out 
of Silvette’s vicinity. True, an easily trans- 
ferred devotion to her sister already consoled 
him; the one was as ornamental as the other, 
but he liked young Rivett no better. 

He desired to ingratiate himself with Jack 
because the boy had never liked him, and he 
neither understood why nor became reconciled 
to it; and he was always making advances 
and assuming, under the jocular familiarity of 
an older man, that there existed between him- 
self and Jack a delightful and cordial under- 
standing, which Jack coolly ignored; and the 
colonel disliked him the more. 

176 


Mille Modi Veneris 


Then, there was another matter which oc- 
cupied him — had occupied him, now, for sev- 
eral years. He meant to marry Christine 
Rivett some day. For the present he was satis- 
fied to treat her with the same jovial famil- 
iarity with which he treated her brother; and 
now it seemed to him that Christine, whom 
he feared might become too much interested 
in Edgerton, was veering toward this young 
Inwood fellow who had just arrived. 

Colonel Curmew was not actually alarmed ; 
he was merely bored, and now and then a trifle 
uneasy, because he had to take this and other 
matters into his calculations in being attentive 
to Diana Tennant. 

No, he was not worried. He Lad become 
cheerfully convinced that both these matters 
could be properly attended to. Let Christine 
have her fling and grow up. Her fortune kept 
pace with her, anyway. 

But about Diana Tennant he had not yet 
entirely made up his mind — and yet he had 
made it up, too, after a fashion. 

There were, including Diana’s youth and 
beauty, several things about her which were 
likely to attract the attention of such a man 
as Follis Curmew. First of all, she was poor. 

1 77 


Japonette 


Also, she was self-supporting and alone in the 
world except for a similarly situated sister 
who didn’t count, and a very distant relative 
who didn’t really count, either. 

She was beautiful and clever ; men appreci- 
ate such women. Such women, he also be- 
lieved, deeply appreciated the kind of things 
they could not afford. . . . And, furthermore, 
he did not hesitate to believe that such women 
were perfectly capable of appreciating middle- 
aged military gentlemen of discretion, fortune, 
and liberality in reason. 

So he contrived to get as close to Diana as 
he could on all occasions; and very often, to 
her surprise, she found him at her heels or 
seated unnaturally near her, pale eyes slightly 
protruding, his curling mustache and little 
side whiskers faintly redolent of brilliantine. 

Amused, and not yet uneasy, she mentioned 
his assiduity to her sister, and thought nothing 
further of it; nor did Silvette, preoccupied 
with an episode of her own which threatened 
to become something approaching a problem. 

Instinct told her that Jack Rivett preferred 
her to anybody at Adriutha; and she liked 
him well enough to find his attention agree- 
able. But little by little it became more 
i 7 8 


Mille Modi Veneris 


marked — to her, if not to others — and she ex- 
perienced a slight uneasiness concerning this 
very rich and idle only son, the ambition of 
whose father had now become plain to her. 

So Silvette at first very pleasantly discour- 
aged him, and kept out of tete-a-tetes as 
much as possible, in which maneuvers she 
was not very successful. For the girl found 
in this lazy, witty, good-humored, self-in- 
dulgent young fellow a cool and confident ad- 
versary — resistless because of his charming 
manner toward her and his unvarying cheer- 
fulness under rebuffs which were becoming 
more frequent and more severe — and, alas, 
more useless. 

About a week after Inwood’s arrival, while 
writing a letter in the rose-garden pavilion,* a 
shadow checkered the lattice work and fell 
across her note paper; and, glancing up, she 
beheld Jack Rivett, hands in his coat pockets, 
the breeze ruffling his blond hair. 

“ I’m writing,” she said, annoyed. 

“ I’ll sit down on the sundial,” he rejoined 
with a bow and a smile as though accepting 
a delightful invitation. 

“ But I’ll be writing about two hours,” she 
observed coldly. 


179 


Japonette 


“ Writing about two hours?” he repeated. 
“ But why write about hours at all, dear lady. 
An hour is an arbitrary division of time, in- 
teresting only to the unhappy.” 

“ Very witty,” she said. “ Go and scratch 
it on the sundial.” 

And she resumed her letter, trying not to 
be aware of the blond young man seated just 
outside the summer house, where the sun 
gilded his hair and the wind mussed it into a 
most becoming mop. 

Several times she bit the pearl tip of her 
penholder, frowning; but he always seemed 
to catch her eye at such moments, and her 
deepening frown only produced on his face an 
expression which was so very humble that it 
became almost mischievous. 

“ Jack!” 

He hurriedly rose, and looked all around 
him among the roses as though eagerly search- 
ing for the person who had called him. 

“Jack!” she repeated emphatically. 

He pretended to discover her for the first 
time, and hurried joyously to the lattice door. 

“ Jack — you perfect idiot ! I want to write, 
and I simply can’t, with you sitting around in 
that martyred manner.” 

180 


Mille Modi Veneris 


“ How far away shall I retire ? ” he in- 
quired, so sad and crestfallen, that between 
amusement and annoyance she did not reply, 
but merely sat tapping with her pen and in- 
specting her letter. 

As she did not speak again, very cautiously 
— and holding up one hand as an unwelcome 
dog holds up one beseeching paw to ward off 
calamity — he ventured to seat himself on a 
bench outside the summer house. 

She was perfectly aware of the inim- 
itable pantomime, and a violent desire to 
laugh seized her, but she only bit her lip 
and resolutely dipped her pen into the ink 
once more. 

She wrote obstinately, knowing all the while 
that she'd have to rewrite it. His excessive 
stillness began to get on her nerves ; and, after 
a quarter of an hour’s preternatural silence, 
she could endure it no longer. 

“ Jack ! ” 

“ Dear lady ? ” he replied patiently. 

“ Why don’t you say something ? ” 

“ I was forbidden the exquisite consolation 
of noise.” 

“ It’s horribly hot and still out here. Why 
don’t the birds sing ? ” 

181 


I 


Japonette 

“They’re moulting, dear lady. All their 
little pin feathers have become unfastened, 
and their bills are probably full of pins while 
they make themselves tidy again.” 

“ So that is why they don’t sing in July? ” 
she said. 

“ That is why,” he explained seriously. 

“Well, then, why don’t you sing? You 
are not untidy.” 

“ Nothing could suit my pensive and melan- 
choly mood better,” he said sadly. 

A moment later, sitting outside her door, 
he began with deep emotion to sing one of 
Kirk’s melting melodies : 

“ With head bowed low a dentist stood 
Before his oifice chair ; 

A handsome lady customer 
Into his eyes did stare. 

He tried to fake a careless smile 
And hide his drooping jaw, 

But all in vain because his guilt 
Was plainly to be saw. 

His voice was choked with shame and fear f 
He said, f Fer give me, miss!’ 

But when he begged her pardon there 
The lady then did hiss: 

182 


Mille Modi Veneris 


Chorus. 

“ ‘ Take hack them teeth you made me! I 
Wont wear them in my face ! 

Go hang them in your parlor as 
A badge of your disgrace. 

You swore them crowns was solid gold! 
You're false — like teeth and men! 

Take hack them teeth, you lobster! 

Never speak to me again! 

Take back — take ba-ack — take ba-a-a 

“Jack!” she exclaimed, “that is the most 
— most degraded thing I ever heard you ut- 
ter!” 

“ I’m accustoming you, by degrees, to my 
repertoire. With infinite precautions you 
will, in time* be able to endure much worse 
than this,” he explained kindly. “ Now, what 
shall we try next, dear lady? I have a little 
song called : ‘ Only a pint of shoe strings ! ’ ” 

“Don’t you dare attempt it! . . . Jack, 
please go away. Won’t you, when I ask it? ” 

“ She mutters the unthinkable,” he said, 
shaking his head. “ My music has unseated 
her reason. By and by she will begin to moan 
and revive.” 

“ It’s perfectly outrageous,” she said, tear- 

183 


Japonette 


ing up what she had written, and moving aside 
a little so that sufficient space remained for 
— her sister, perhaps. So he entered the sum- 
mer house and waited for an invitation, bland, 
cheerful, irresistible. 

“ I had no idea I was so pitiably weak- 
minded,” she said. 

He accepted the avowal as his invitation, 
and seated himself. 

“ Silvette,” he said genially, “ what are we 
going to do to-day ? ” 

“ Who?” 

“ Why, you and I. Who cares what the 
others do in this mad world, dear lady ? ” 

“ I don’t know about the world,” she said, 
“ but there’s one girl in it who is mad ; and 
she’s going to her room to write letters.” 

“ When?” 

“ Now ! ” 

“ Don’t.” 

“ Indeed, I shall ! ” 

“ Shall, or will ? ” he inquired, guilelessly^ 
“ People mix up those two auxiliaries so per- 
sistently that there’s no telling what anybody 
really means in these days.” 

She considered a moment, then turned and 
looked at him. 


184 


Mille Modi Veneris 


“ Jack,’’ she said sweetly, “ don’t follow me 
about ? ” 

“I? Follow you! That’s more madness, 
dear lady. Who on earth ever whispered to 

you that I could ever do such a ” 

“ Won’t you be serious, please ? ” 

Her pretty, dark eyes were serious enough, 
even appealing. He became solemn at once. 

“ You have forced me to say this,” she 
ventured. “ I didn’t wish to ; I thought you’d 
understand, but you don’t seem to. So I am 
compelled to say to you that — it is — better 

taste for you to-^not to ” 

She hesitated, glanced up at him, colored 
brightly. 

‘‘You know perfectly well what I mean! 
And there you sit, letting me try to tell you as 

nicely as I can ” 

“ About what, dear lady ? ” 

“ About you and me ! ” she said, incensed. 
“ You know perfectly well that I’ve been 
obliged to avoid being alone with you.” 

“ Why?” 

“ Because,” she said, intensely annoyed, “ I 
am employed by your parents, and you are 
an only son of Mr. Jacob Rivett. ... Is that 
unmistakable ? ” 


185 


Japonette 


He said nothing. 

She went on: “ You know I like you, Jack. 
You seem to like me. If you do, you’ll un- 
derstand that this — this continually seeking 
me out, separating me from the others, isn’t 
fair to me. . . . I’m trying not to talk non- 
sense about it. I know you mean nothing but 
kindness ; but it isn’t wise, and it is not agree- 
able, either. So let us enjoy our very delight- 
ful friendship as freely among others as we 
do when alone together — ” She stopped 
abruptly, blushed to her hair, furious at her- 
self, astonished that her tongue could have 
blundered so. The next instant she under- 
stood that he was too decent to notice her 
blunder. Indeed, to look at him, she almost 
persuaded herself that he had not even heard 
her speak', so coolly remote were his eyes, so 
preoccupied his air as he sat facing the far 
hills, blue in the July haze. 

Presently he looked up at her. 

“ What was it you were lecturing me 
about?” he asked cheerfully. 

“ About our twosing, Jack.” 

“ Did you say you did prefer it, or other- 
wise ? ” 

“ Otherwise — you monkey ! ” she said, 

186 


Mille Modi Veneris 


laughing, free of the restraint and of the 
bright color that had made even her neck 
hot. 

“ Very well,” he said briskly ; “ keep your 
distance! Don’t start running after me the 
moment I come in sight across the landscape. 
Will you promise?” 

“ I promise,” she said solemnly. 

“ Thank you. I shall have a little leisure 
now. I’ll have so much I won’t know what 
to do with it. Can you advise me ? ” 

“ I cannot.” 

“ Then I’ll have to think for myself. . . . 
I’ll have to do something, of course. . . . 
Suppose you and I take a canoe 

“ Canoes hold only two, Jack.” 

“ By Jove ! What am I thinking of ! Thank 
you for saving me from incredible suffering. 
... So suppose we don’t take a canoe, you 
and I, but we take the red runabout ? ” 

“ Jack ! ” 

“ What?” 

“ The red runabout holds two, only.” 

“ I must be demented ! ” he said with a 
shudder. . . . “ Silvette, I’ll tell you what we’ll 
do — we’ll take a walk, you and I. There’s 
room all around us for millions of other 
187 


Japonette 


people. They can come if they like; if they 
don’t, why, it’s up to them ! ” 

“ No, Jack.” 

“Won’t it do?” 

“ No. Why won’t you be a little bit serious 
about a matter that, after all, concerns me very 
nearly.” 

“ I am serious,” he said. “ It concerns me, 
too.” 

“ No, it doesn’t.” 

“ Indeed, it does. Two people are not to 
go twosing any more ; I’m one of those people. 
Therefore, it concerns me, doesn’t it ? ” 

She looked at him, confused, half smiling, 
half reluctant. 

“ Don’t you know,” she said, “ that your 
attention to me is worrying your father and 
mother ? ” 

He thought a moment, then slowly turned 
toward her a sober and youthful face, from 
which all humor had departed ; and she looked 
back at him out of grave young eyes that met 
his very sweetly, but inexorably. 

“ Do you mean it, Silvette ? ” 

“ About your parents ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Yes, I do. Jack.” 

188 


Mille Modi Veneris 


He said, partly to himself : “ I had not 
noticed it.” 

» “ I have. It’s a woman’s business to notice 
such things. Otherwise, she’ll find herself in 
trouble. . . . Inclination is a silly guide* 
Jack.” 

“ For me?” 

“ For — us both. ... I will be frank with 
you all the way through. I do like you. I 
enjoy our tete-a-tetes. They are perfectly 
honest and harmless, and without significance 
— the significance, alas, that others will surely 
attach to them. ... It isn’t that there’s any- 
thing wrong with you and me, Jack. . . . It’s 
the World that is wrong. . . . But — it’s the 
World ; and you and I must conform to its 
prejudices as long as we inhabit it — at least I 
must.” 

“ I suppose you must,” he said. Then, lean- 
ing a little nearer, he took her hand, held it 
lightly across his palm, looked at it a mo- 
ment, then at her. 

“ Will you let me tell father and mother 
that I am in love with you, and wish to marry 
you?” he said. 

“Jack!” she exclaimed in consternation. 

“ Will you let me ? ” 

189 


Japonette 


“No, I won’t! . . . Jack! Don’t be fool- 
ish. I had no idea you had arrived as far as 
that. I had no reason to think so — to sup- 
pose for one moment — because it has always 
been the j oiliest and most unsentimental — and 
— you never even touched me before.” 

Her color brightened, and her breath came 
irregularly. She tried to laugh, and failed. 

“ You know perfectly well that they have 
other ambitions for you.” 

“ I know. . . . How is it with you, Sil- 
vette ? ” 

“ With me ? What do you mean ? ” 

“ Could you care for me ? ” 

“ 1 — I haven’t even thought about such a 
— I haven’t really, Jack. You know that, 
don’t you? You must try to look back on our 
very brief friendship — try to recollect how 
brief it has been — try to remember — remem- 
ber how happy and amusing and confident 
that friendship has been — with no suspicion 

of sentiment to embarrass or vex ” 

“ I know. . . . Isn’t there any hope for 
me? ” 

“Hope? No. . . . Don’t put it that way, 
Jack. ... I don't love you. ... I oughtn’t 
to, and, thank Heaven, I don’t. And you don’t 
190 


Mille Modi Veneris 


really love me — you. dear, sweet fellow ! It’s 
just part of your niceness — your generous at- 
titude toward a girl ” 

“ I’m in love with you. . . . But that 
mustn’t worry you. It had to be. You need 
feel no self-reproach. You didn’t do any- 
thing — you were just yourself — and I ” — he 
laughed a little — “ started in to love you as 
soon as I saw you. . . . I’m glad you know it, 
anyway. We won’t say anything more about 
it ” 

“ Jack, we will! Do you understand that 
you have distressed me dreadfully? Do you 
realize what a girl’s responsibilities are when a 
nice man loves her? Do you think she can 
merely shrug her shoulders and go about her 
daily frivolities without another thought ? ” 
She rose to her feet, looking at him ear- 
nestly. 

“Oh, Jack! Jack!” she said, nervously 
clasping and unclasping her hands ; “ why did 
you do this ? Why did you ? ” 

He forced a laugh. “ I won’t do it again 
— ever,” he said. “ Promise you never to fall- 
in-love-again-hope-I-may-die’n-cross m’heart.” 
But there were no smiles left in her now. 
“If you don’t behave,” he threatened, “ I’ll 

191 


Japonette 


lock us both inside and sing songs to you ! ” 
. . . But the smile died out on his face. “ I 
was a gink to tell you. Don’t feel unhappy 
about it/’ again the engaging humor glimmered 
in his eyes. “ Cheer up, Silvette ; you may fall 
in love with me yet ! ” 

She looked up, the smile dawning, dis- 
tressed, yet sweet. 

“ Don’t let me, Jack. . . . Because I’m all 
right, so far. . . . And you know what your 
father wishes for you. I want to deal honor- 
ably by him.” 

“ All right,” he said quietly. 

They walked slowly back to the house to- 
gether, and the girl went directly to her room, 
where she found her sister mending stockings. 


CHAPTER IX 


NON SEQUITUR 


B ILVETTE dropped into an armchair, 
crossed her knees, and sat swinging her 
foot and gazing through the open window in 
silence until Diana’s head, lifted from time to 
time in smiling interrogation, could be no 
longer ignored. 

“ Jack Rivett has asked me to marry him,” 
she said in an expressionless voice. 

Diana laughed in frank surprise: 

“ That infant!” 

“ Yes.” 

“ What an absurdity ! ” 

Her sister said nothing. 

“ How did it come — out of a clear sky?” 

“ Yes. ... I knew he liked me. I had no 
idea he wanted to marry me.” 

“ You’re not going to, are you?” 

“ No.” 

“ I should think not. It would be sheer 
cradle snatching.” 


193 


Japonette 


“ He’s a year older than I am.’* 

“ In years, yes ; but, intellectually, he ought 
to be playing marbles. Moreover, that sort 
of a boy never grows up.” 

“ I don’t think he will. . . . God bestows 
that gift sometimes.” 

“ What gift?” 

“ The gift of eternal youth. ... I haven’t 
it. . . . But I believe it can be shared.” She 
gazed thoughtfully at the distant hills. 
“ Years and years slip from me when that 
boy and I talk nonsense together.” 

“ Better talk sense with him, and wake up, 
sweetness, or you’ll relapse into your second 
childhood.” 

“ I have just been talking sense to him. . . . 
I’m awake,” she said dreamily. 

“ Do you mean to admit that the interview 
has seriously affected you ? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t know yet.” 

“ Better investigate,” said Diana. “ You 
know what his parents expect of their chil- 
dren. And if we are to remain here, I think, 
dear, that you had better see a little less of 
Jack Rivett than you have been seeing. Don’t 
you?” 

“ I am sure of it.” 


194 


Non Sequitur 


“ Otherwise/’ continued Diana calmly, “ it 
would be playing the game fairer for you and 
me to seek another business engagement. 
These people have been very honorable toward 
us. We can scarcely permit them to outdo 
us.” 

Silvette looked up calmly, her cheek rest- 
ing on her hand. 

“How dishonorable would it be?” she 
asked. 

“ What?” 

“ To — let him fall in love with me?” 

“ Ask yourself. You know their social am- 
bitions.” 

“ I know ; but, after all, you and I started 
out to make of life a successful business prop- 
osition. I thought a desirable marriage was 
to be part of the programme.” 

“Do you consider Jack Rivett desirable? 
He could take you nowhere. With all his 
wealth, where could you take him? And any- 
way, it’s not playing the game, Silvie. It’s 
kidnaping.” She laughed. “ Take a man of 
your size — and of the world, little sister; and 
if he isn’t of the world, and is poor, defy him 
to take you ! — give him battle — put up a good 
fight with foot, horse, and artillery. The best 
195 


Japonette 


one of you will always win, and the other get 
what’s coming.” 

Silvette went to the desk, supplied herself 
with pen and paper, and prepared to resume 
her interrupted correspondence. Presently 
she looked around, pen poised. 

“ Did the best man win between you and 
Jim Edgerton ? ” she asked. 

Diana bent lower over her sewing. 

“ I’m afraid so, Silvie.” 

“ Then you won.” 

“ I think so. ... I have fought jtt over 
every day since — alone.” 

“ You poor little thing,” said Silvette softly. 

Diana looked up with a slight smile. “ Per- 
haps you misunderstood me, dear. I told you 
I was winning. . . . Which means, I think, 
that Jim Edgerton isn’t going to remain very 
long at Adriutha.” 

“ Where is he going?” 

“ I don’t know that he is going at all ; he 
doesn’t know it, either. . . . But, somehow, 
I dare believe that he is going.” 

“ Where?” 

“ Into a man’s world to engage in a man’s 
business.” 

“ It isn’t in him, Diana. ... You are tak- 
196 


Non Sequitur 


in g a great responsibility on your shoulders. 
Do you realize that you are ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And that a man with no more force of 
character and real ability than he has may 
starve? That the world will probably break 
his heart, anyway.” 

“ Let it, then. . . . Only a real man’s heart 
breaks. I’ll know he’s one if it does; and so 
will he. And that’s worth all the rest.” 

“ That’s a stern creed, little sister, con- 
sidering the pleasure-loving lips that utter 
it.” 

“ Out of the mouth of fools, wisdom. It 
doesn’t matter what I am. The thing that is 
important is what he shall become.” 

“If he become what you desire, he may 
have little further interest in you.” 

He will have none, if he becomes what 
he could become,” said the girl steadily. “ Did 
you suppose my — ambition for him was 
selfish?” 

“ Little breaker of images, are you going to 
shatter your own under his very eyes ? ” 

“ He will be the iconoclast some day. . . . 
Probably I’ll be married before that — as soon, 
anyway, as it’s best for him. . . . I’ve plenty 
197 


Japonette 


of time.” . . . She smiled without a trace of 
mirth in her eyes. “ Mr. Snaith has already 
indicated his noiseless entry into the lists. He 
and Colonel Curmew are at lance points. Ma- 
terially speaking, a girl ought to consider both 
of them.” 

“ But, child, we have many another busi- 
ness engagement before us yet, I trust. . . - 
You wouldn’t think of taking the first — the 
first ” 

“ Million offered ? ” asked Diana, laughing. 
“ No, of course not, silly. I’m merely ob- 
serving the manners and customs of the 
creature man.” 

Silvette laughed, too. “ How are you get- 
ting on with Billy Inwood ? ” she asked de- 
murely — “ speaking of more agreeable mat- 
ters.” 

“Perfectly; after the initial shock at en- 
countering me here, he behaved most reason- 
ably. 1 have an idea that he came here on 
Christine’s account, and he seemed to be 
rather nervous as to his obligations to me, 
but I set that right at the first opportunity. 
I said : ‘ Billy, if I don’t tell you, somebody 
else will, that Silvette and I are here prac- 
ticing our profession, which is — to be amiable 

198 


Non Sequitur 


to the guests and help entertain them. So 
I’m going to be just as amiable to you as I 
know how, but it need not frighten you be- 
cause I have no designs on you.’ ” 

They both laughed. Diana, mending her 
stocking, continued: 

“ I think he was very much relieved, though 
he pretended not to be. I wonder if he did 
come here to see Christine? The girl is cool 
enough with him, and he is inclined to follow 
her about in an aimless sort of way, as though 
he had something on his mind.” 

“ He seems to be equally attentive to 
Christine and Mrs. Wemyss,” observed Sil- 
vette. “ It appears that he and that ample 
beauty are old friends.” 

“ Who is Mrs. Wemyss, anyway?” 

Silvette smiled. “ I asked Mrs. Rivett, say- 
ing that there was something familiar about 
Mrs. Wemyss, and that I had an idea I had 
seen her somewhere; but Mrs. Rivett didn't 
know who she was. She had met her last 
winter at the Plaza, which is the kind of thing 
one might have expected — even of Mrs. Riv- 
ett, who is as dear a little woman as ever 
wore sapphires at breakfast. . . . What a 
horrid, cynical thing I’m turning into! . . . 

199 


Japonette 


And now I’m going to turn into an imitation 
of a young girl dressing for luncheon. 
Heigho ! I wish other people were what they 
ought to be and I were what I'd like to be. 
The world would wag very well, then.” 

Luncheon was the usual animated, gossipy, 
and amusing function that Silvette and Diana 
and Jack Rivett always made it, and at which 
Colonel Curmew assiduously assisted accord- 
ing to his notions of jollity. 

Edgerton for the last week or so had re- 
mained rather silent among the others, amiable 
and nice always and perfectly receptive when 
spoken to, but not volunteering very much, and 
not, according to Colonel Curmew’s idea, earn- 
ing his salary. However, as the colonel didn’t 
like him, that fact may have colored his judg- 
ment when he spoke to Mr. Rivett about it 
after luncheon in the privacy of that silent 
man’s study. 

“ He’s turned into what I knew he was — a 
damned snob ! ” said the colonel, sitting with 
widened legs, a rich cigar tucked in under his 
military mustache, and furtively loosening the 
rear buckle of his white waistcoat. 

“ He doesn’t pay for his keep,” he went on. 

200 


Non Sequitur 


“ What use to you is a man who sits around 
looking unapproachable ? ” 

“ I have no difficulty in approaching him,” 
observed Mr. Rivett. 

“ You pay him. To look at him, one would 
think he paid you.” 

“ He pays me his services.” 

“ Ah, but he doesn’t ! He’s off with that 
little Diana girl half the time.” 

“ That’s their affair.” 

“ By gad ! Is it ? They’re both here on a 
salary if it comes to that, Jake. . . . Say, did 
it ever strike you as funny — this cousin busi- 
ness he puts up ? ” 

Mr. Rivett’s burned-brown eyes fixed them- 
selves on the jaunty colonel. 

“ How?” 

“ Oh, nothing. . . . They’re rather distant 
relatives, that’s all. ... Not but what she 
seems to be straight — as far as I know.” 

“ What does anybody else know about 
her? ” 

“ Oh, nothing — nothing,” said the colonel, 
waving his cigar and heavy seal ring. “ But 
it’s curious. ... You can’t really say a word 
against an Edgerton, rich or poor ; but, as far 
as I can see the girl is only a little adventuress 
201 


Japonette 


looking for trouble. . . . She’ll probably get 
it some day,” he added with a tenor laugh 
peculiarly ungrateful to the auditory mechan- 
ism of Mr. Rivett. 

The colonel puffed his cigar in smiling si- 
lence for a while; then, expelling another 
laugh and a large volume of blue smoke, 
slapped his knee, straightened his tie and 
v'aistcoat and shot his cuffs. 

“ She’ll be all right to take about town, eh, 
Jake?” he said. 

Mr. Rivett said nothing, 

“ Now, there’s old Parke Ellingford,” con- 
tinued the colonel ; “ he’s never had as good 
looking a girl, and, b’gad ! I’ve seen ’em all 
— known most of ’em,” he added with a leer. 
“ And take any of the men you and I know 
— Wallowby, Dankland, and that hatchet- 
faced Van Wyne ! They’ve never had any 
better-looking girl than that little Diana.” 

Mr. Rivett said nothing. 

“ B’gad ! ” said the colonel, with a laugh 
that approached the falsetto, “ if she doesn’t 
cut a dash in town this winter, I miss my 
guess.” 

“ Oh — are you to be in town ? ” inquired 
Mr. Rivett. 


202 


Non Sequitur 


“ I ? No ; Palm Beach/’ said the colonel 
hastily, watching the other out of his pale and 
protruding eyes. “ And then — I don’t go in 
for such capers,” he explained with a pained 
expression. “ What a man jokes about, he 
never bothers with.” 

“ I’ve joked many a man out of half a 
million,” observed Rivett grimly. 

“ That’s different. . . . I’m a settled citi- 
zen.” He looked cautiously at Rivett, hesi- 
tated, then said carelessly : “ I mean to marry, 
some day.” 

“ Do you?” 

“ I do, certainly. . . . And I flatter myself 
that the woman I marry will receive her 
equivalent, sir.” 

“ Her moral equivalent ? ” 

“ Certainly. Perhaps not her — ah — finan- 
cial equivalent.” He looked up at Rivett to 
see how he took it. Rivett neither took it nor 
rejected it, apparently, and the colonel probed 
further. 

“ I expect to wait a year or two ” 

“ Aren’t you getting on, Follis ? ” 

“ No, sir, I am not getting on ! ” said the 
colonel shortly. “ I am forty-five. No man 
is fit to marry before he’s forty-seven, in my 
203 


Japonette 


opinion. At that age he’s able to treat his 
wife intelligently. Intelligence is what a 
young girl most deeply appreciates in a man.” 

“ A — young girl? ” 

“ ^ prefer a youthful wife. Youth is sus- 
ceptible of being moulded. I propose to make 
a perfect specimen of womanhood out of what- 
ever charming and adolescent material fortune 
bestows upon me.” The colonel slightly lifted 
his eyes until they protruded toward the ceil- 
ing. “ I shall consider my wife as a sacred 
trust, a soul for which I am responsible.” 

“ Very good idea,” said Rivett without the 
slightest trace of expression on his face. 
“ Why not marry the little Diana — and mould 
her into the ideal ? ” 

“ Marry her ! ” blurted out Curmew. 
“ What ! Marry a hired — a paid — employee ! ” 

His countenance became crimson and con- 
gested, and his eyes popped and popped. 

Rivett rose. “ My wife worked in her un- 
cle’s kitchen when I married her,” he said in- 
differently, and walked out. 

On the stairway he joined Diana, also de- 
scending. 

“ Well,” he said, looking at her through his 
round glasses, “ you look happy enough.” 

204 


Non Seqnitur 


“ I am, thank you,” said the girl, smiling. 

“ Don’t thank me for it,” he said dryly. 

“ You’re to be thanked, too,” she laughed 
— “ or ought to be. But you don’t like it, I 
know, so I tell your wife how very pleasant 
you are making Adriutha for my sister and 
myself.” 

“ Do you find it pleasant ? ” 

“ Yes, I do.” 

“ Like the people ? ” 

They had halted on the stairs. 

She looked up at him. 

“ Some of them I like,” she said frankly. 

“ Which?” 

“ That is bad manners ! . . . But I like you 
and your wife and Christine and Jack.” 

“ All of us?” 

“ Unreservedly — except in your case.” 

“ What’s the matter with me ? ” he asked 
grimly. 

“ Why, I don’t know you very well,” she 
said, “ so how can ” 

“ Come and talk it over,” he said. 

They resumed the descent of the stairway 
together, and, side by side, walked out to a 
seat on the terrace overlooking the river. 

“ Sit down, ma’am,” he said, dusting the 
205 


Japonette 


marble bench with his drab-colored soft hat. 
She seated herself with decorum, inwardly 
amused. He dusted a place for himself, and 
sat down beside her. 

“ Now,” he said, “ what’s the matter with 
me, Miss Tennant?” 

She laughed deliciously. “ Nothing that I 
have ever discovered.” 

“ You’re not much of an explorer, are 
you ? ” 

“ A rather good one, Mr. Rivett. But — 
you know there are still certain peaks in the 
world that defy approach,” she added auda- 
ciously. 

“ I’m a peak, am I ? ” 

He came so near to smiling that the girl 
watched him with increasing interest. 

“ You know,” she said, “ that you are not 
exactly talkative, Mr. Rivett. How is a girl 
to form any definite idea of a — a — sphinx ? ” 

“ That’s two names you’ve called me al- 
ready ” — he looked at his watch — “ in the last 
four minutes — a peak and a sphinx.” 

She was laughing so unrestrainedly now 
that the corners of his eyes began to wrinkle 
a trifle. 

He said : “ What do you think of a self- 
206 


Non Se quit ur 


made man who was once schoolmaster, day 
laborer, donkey-engine tender, foreman — 
all kinds of things, and whose wife was 
washing out a wood shed when he first met 
her? ” 

“ Is that you ? ” 

“ It is. What do you think of such a man’s 
chances in New York?” 

“ Financial?” 

“ Social.” 

“ I don’t know New York.” 

“You’re highly connected there?” 

“ It is a very distant connection. . . . Mr. 
Edgerton chooses to acknowledge it.” 

“ He’s a snob, isn’t he? ” 

“ Not in the slightest,” she said pleasantly ; 
but the blood mounted to her cheeks and be- 
trayed her. 

“You like him?” 

“ Naturally.” 

“ Unnaturally, too ? ” 

“ Kinship has little to do with my liking 
him.” 

“ He’s rather easy-going, isn’t he ? ” 

She flushed up again, and turned her clear 
eyes on his little brown ones. 

“ Don’t you like him ? ” she asked. 

207 


Japonette 


“ Isn’t he easy-going ? ” 

“ He has not yet found himself. He is an 
intelligent, warm-hearted, high-minded man, 
capable of taking an honorable position in the 
world. . . . And I do not doubt that he will 
one day take and keep it.” 

“ He. was in iron, was he not — Edgerton, 
Tennant & Co.?” 

“ Yes.” 

Mr. Rivett thought for a while. “ By the 
way,” he said, “ I neglected to answer your 
question. I’ll answer it now. I like Mr. Ed- 
gerton.” 

“ Thank you,” said Diana, not perfectly 
aware of what she said. 

Mr. Rivett sat buried in meditation for fully 
five minutes ; at the end of that period he 
turned his glasses on her. 

“ I want to gossip with you,” he said 
abruptly. 

She began to laugh again. 

“ How did you discover that I am such a 
dreadful gossip? Begin at once, please. I 
adore picking to pieces my absent acquaint- 
ances.” 

“ Yes — tearing ’em to tatters, the way you 
demolished Mr. Edgerton just now,” he said 
208 


Non Sequitur 


grimly. “ Well, I’ll begin the scandal bee. 
Where did you know Mr. Inwood ?” 

“ In Keno, Nevada,” she said coolly, won- 
dering what was impending. 

“ Know him long? ” 

“ One winter.” 

“ In Keno?” 

“ In Keno.” 

“Like him?” 

“ Immensely.” 

“ Oh ! So you’re going to tear him to tat- 
ters, too ? ” 

“ Just as I demolished Mr. Edgerton. 
They’re the two nicest men I ever knew. It’s 
odd, isn’t it, that I didn’t know they were 
such intimate friends before Mr. Inwood came 
here ? ” 

“ Are they?” 

“ I understand so.” 

“And you didn’t know it?” 

“ How should I ? I never saw Mr. Inwood 
except that winter in Keno ; and I don’t know 
my cousin intimately.” 

“ How well do you know your cousin ? ” 

The girl sat thinking for a moment, then 
looked up frankly. 

“ Perhaps you can judge,” she said, and 
209 


Japonette 


told him the history of her friendship with 
Edgerton from their meeting in his studio to 
their arrival at Adriutha. And Mr. Rivett 
listened without a shade of expression on his 
face, but his little dark eyes seemed to bore 
her through and through. 

“ That,” she said, “ is the situation.” She 
hesitated, then meeting his gaze candidly, but 
with a slight increase of color in her cheeks : 

“ I told you this because I wanted to be 
fair to Mr. Edgerton — in case — in the event 
of you — your family — people here not con- 
sidering us of much importance. Mr. Edger- 
ton is not responsible for us. ... I think he 
came from some boyish impulse — some chiv- 
alrous notion that my sister and I, being 
alone, might receive perhaps more considera- 
tion if a man of our family accompanied us.” 

1 see. 

“ I wanted you to see. I’m glad Eve had 
an opportunity to make the matter plain that 
Mr. Edgerton is in no way responsible for 
any shortcomings on our part.” 

“ Nobody complains of you.” 

“ Oh, no ; everybody is nice to us. But — 
we — do things — which— women of his family 
— perhaps would not do.” 

210 


Non Sequitur 


“ Smoke?” 

“Yes. Cocktails, too. Also we gamble, 
dreadfully.” 

“ Wouldn’t his people? ” 

“ I don’t know,” said the girl. “ I don’t 
know New York. One reads about these 
rather harmless vices being universal there. 
. . . But Silvette and I are really provincial. 
Provincials usually go too far in either direc- 
tion. It was only that I did not wish people 
to judge Mr. Edgerton from us.” 

Mr. Rivett scraped the gravel with his cane 
for a moment, then : 

“ So you like Inwood ? ” 

“ Very much.” 

“ Wasn’t he mixed up in some mess or 
other?” 

“ I never heard so,” she said, surprised. 

“Oh! What was he doing in Keno?” 

She laughed. “ Visiting, as we were, I sup- 
pose. You know we weren’t being divorced.” 

“ Glad to hear it.” 

“You didn’t think so!” she exclaimed. 

His eyes twinkled. 

“ No,” he said, “ I didn’t. But you can’t 
throw a stone into a crowd and give odds on 
its not hitting a divorced person.” 

21 1 


Japonette 


“ Does divorce shock you ? ” 

“ Not in the least; I’m past shocks, young 
lady. Who is Mrs. Wemyss?” 

“ Your own guest?” 

He winced. “ I’m asking you. We made 
her acquaintance at the Plaza last winter. . . . 
It seems that she and young Inwood knew 
each other in Keno.” 

“ That is where I’ve seen her! ” said Diana 
with innocent conviction. “ I knew I’d seen 
her somewhere. . . . But she was very much 
slighter — oh, very much — and extremely 
pretty.” 

“ Divorcee ? ” 

“ Isn’t she a widow ? ” 

“ I guess so. ... No matter.” ... He 
stood up briskly ; she rose, too, understanding 
that the interview was ended — feeling slightly 
uncomfortable because she had permitted her- 
self to be so thoroughly pumped. Yet there 
seemed to be nothing significant in the opera- 
tion or results. 

“ I’m going for a ride with my wife ” — he 
meant drive — “ just a buggy and an old plug. 
She and I enjoy it, Miss Tennant.” 

To her surprise he took her hand between 
his own dry little palms and pressed it. 

212 


Non Sequitur 


“You’re a good girl,” he said; “you and 
your sister — and Edgerton — he’s all right — 
you’re good children — and all off the same 
tree, little lady — all off the same old block in 
the beginning — that’s plain as preaching. . . . 
Do you really like my Christine ? ” 

“ Yes, I do.” 

“And Jack?” 

“ Exceedingly.” 

“ That’s right ; they like you, too. They 
ought to. They’re good children, and so are 
you. Good-by.” 


CHAPTER X 


COMPOS MENTIS 


* S Diana put her pony to a full gallop 
I » and rode him off, Edgerton’s mount 
fell, and the young fellow lay sprawling on 
the sod. 

He was on his feet immediately; so was 
his polo pony. When Diana pulled up, whirled 
her mount and came scurrying back, Edger- 
ton had picked up his mallet and stood resting 
against his saddle. 

“All right, Jim?” she asked briefly. 

“ All right, thanks.” 

The color had left his face under the tan, 
and his expression was queer. 

“ You look rather white,” she insisted. 
“ Did Parsnip kick you?” 

“ It’s nothing,” he said, smiling. “ Put Jack 
in; I’ve got some business to talk over with 
Mr. Rivett.” 

“ You’re sure you’re all right ? ” 

214 


Compos Mentis 


“ What a fuss you are ! ” he said, leading 
Parsnip across the field toward a groom. 

The girl looked after him, saw the groom 
slip a white wool polo coat over the young 
man’s shoulders and take the pony, saw Ed- 
gerton drop his hands into the pockets and 
stroll across the field toward the terrace ; then, 
lifting her mallet, she hailed Jack Rivett in a 
clear, ringing call, and cantered away up field. 

As Mr. Rivett senior stood waiting for his 
wife at the foot of the terrace steps, wrapped 
in his old-fashioned linen duster and pulling 
on a pair of worn driving gloves, Edgerton, 
in' white from head to foot, came across the 
lawn, the youthful antithesis of the older man 
— tall, powerfully built, his smooth skin and 
short, thick hair burned by the summer sun — ■ 
a graceful, leisurely figure agreeable to see on 
anybody’s lawn. 

“ Good morning ! ” he said pleasantly, stop- 
ping on the gravel drive. 

“ Good morning, Mr. Edgerton. Are the 
young people amusing themselves ? ” 

“ I think so — thoroughly.” 

“ You came a cropper?” 

“ I sometimes do.” 

“You are amusing yourself?” 

215 


Japonette 


“ I always do.” 

“ So do I,” nodded Rivett, buttoning his 
gloves. “ Never was bored in my life — poor 
compliment to oneself, Mr. Edgerton, to find 
life a bore.” 

Edgerton smiled and stood with his left 
hand in his coat pocket, looking out at the 
flat field beyond, where half a dozen young 
people on lively ponies swung their mallets, 
and cantered leisurely about in pretense of 
practice. 

Presently Diana, Christine, and Inwood 
swung their ponies, and came driving pell- 
mell down the field after the ball. 

“ Your cousins seem to be up to anything,” 
commented Rivett. 

“ They were bred to everything worth- 
while.” 

“ Oh ! Is polo worth while, as you call it ? ” 

“ Do you wish to start such a complex 
discussion ? ” asked Edgerton, laughing. 

“No; my wife will be here in a moment. 

. . . You’re looking very pale, young man,” 
he added abruptly. “ Did that pony hurt 
you ? ” 

“ A little. . . . Mr. Rivett, do you need my 
services any longer ? ” 

216 


Compos Mentis 


“ I don’t need anybody’s services,” said the 
little man dryly. “ I never needed anybody in 
all my life — except my wife. There’s no such 
thing as a necessary man. No man ever lived 
who couldn’t be replaced. . . . What’s the 
matter ? ” 

Edgerton said slowly : “ I thought I’d go 
back to town and hunt up a job.” 

“ Why?” 

“ Because there’s no reason for my being 
here. There never was any reason. You 
knew it when I asked you to take me, but I 
didn’t — because I didn’t know you and your 
family.” 

“ That’s a compliment, isn’t it?” 

“ It’s just the truth. I’m glad my cousins 
are with you. ... I’d like to go back now.” 

“ Tired of us?” 

“ You don’t have to ask that.” 

“ More compliments,” said Rivett. “ What 
is wrong, then ? ” 

“ I am.” 

“ Hadn’t noticed it.” 

Edgerton smiled faintly. “ More compli- 
ments ? . . . Mr. Rivett, I want to go to town 
and hunt up a job, and get in the game. That’s 
all.” 


217 


Japonette 


“ Can’t you wait a month and see us 
through the October shooting ? ” 

Edgerton stepped nearer. 

“ I would, merely because you ask me, but 
I can’t. I just want to get away quietly, and 
not bother anybody. . . . I’ve broken my 
arm.” 

Mr. Rivett swung sharply and his eye- 
glasses glittered. 

“ Which ? ” he demanded. 

“ The left. . . . I’ll just run down to town 
and have it fixed up. Don’t say anything 
about it until I’ve left.” 

“ Won’t you stay here and let us look after 
you ? ” 

“ I knew you’d say that. You’ve been very 
nice to me. Ask me again as a guest. I’ll be 
glad to come as a friend if you care for me 
that way.” 

Mr. Rivett’s unchanging eyes watched 
him. 

“ We’ll ask you. My wife likes you. So 
do I. ... I don’t want to interfere with a 
man who knows his own mind. . . . But do* 
you think you can stand the journey?” 

Edgerton’s white lips were compressed. 

“ Yes,” he said. 


218 


Compos Mentis 


“Very well; we’ll stop at Fern Center. 
Billings can reduce the fracture.” 

“ Are you going with me ? ” 

“ I certainly am,” said the elder man. 

With a valet’s aid he got into his clothes.. 
His swollen wrist lay in a sling. 

“ I won’t bother the others now,” he said 
to Mrs. Rivett who was on the edge of tears 
because he would not remain and let her take 
care of him. “ Please say good-by for me 
when they come in, and say that I’m all right 
and hope to see them all again. . . . Good-by ! 
. . . It’s been a real happiness to know you 
— and yours. Will you let me continue the 
friendship? ” 

“ Please do,” she said tremulously. “ Jacob, 
you will tell Holmes to drive carefully, won’t 
you ? ” 

“ Yes, mother. Billings is going to put him 
in good shape.” 

So they drove away in^a big red touring 
car, Edgerton sick with pain, but perfectly 
cheerful; Rivett taciturn, twirling his gloved 
thumbs, seeming to muse gloomily in his wal- 
rus mustache. 

Dr. Billings reduced the fracture — a simple 
219 


Japonette 


one — Edgerton refusing anaesthetics. He 
fainted during the short operation, and came 
to with his head on Rivett’s shoulder. 

Half an hour later he was on his way to 
New York, lying back in a chair in the draw- 
ing-room car, feverish lids closed. Rivett sat 
in the chair opposite. 

“ I was going, anyway,” he said briefly in 
reply to the young fellow’s protest. 

And together they made the journey, not 
only to the city, but to Edgerton’s apartment, 
where Rivett quietly turned himself into a 
valet, helped the young man to bed, called up 
his physician, Dr. Ellis, lingered to learn what 
condition the patient was in, and silently van- 
ished. And for two or three days Edgerton 
forgot about him, for Ellis kept him pretty 
quiet, and the nurse who had been summoned 
knew her business. 

He managed, however, to write his bread- 
and-jam letter to Mrs. Rivett, and another to 
Diana : 

“ My Dear Cousin : 

“ They’ve probably told you that I’ve been 
ass enough to snap a bone in my left arm. 
It’s nothing, as you hunting people under- 
220 


Compos Mentis 


stand. I was a bit stupid with it, so I ran 
down to town to have it fixed up — and, in- 
cidentally, hunt up a job; and I wasn’t up 
to explaining and saying by-by to every- 
body, so I just slunk off — ill mannered pup 
that I am ; but people are indulgent to dogs. 

“ This is just a line to take leave of you 
and Silvette, and to ask you to remember that, 
in any and all interims, this apartment is a 
family joint, so don’t go elsewhere and pay 
perfectly good rent. Your room and Silvette’s 
is always ready for you — useless unless you 
use it. 

“ When I nail a job, I’ll report to the fam- 
ily. If you make new plans, may I hear from 
you? 

“ Wishing you both a jolly and successful 
autumn, 

“ Your cousin, 

“ James Edgerton 3D.” 

Tier reply came by return mail: 

“ Jim, dear, I feel very badly about your 
injury. It was my fault; I cannoned into you. ' 
You behaved as only a man of your sort al- 
ways does. I won’t say any more about it. 

“ By this time I hope you are freer from 
221 


Japonette 


pain. The first two days are the limit ; I know 
from experience and two mended ribs. But 
— I hate to think of you in bed this glorious 
autumn day — and the little fool who sent you 
there idling in the sunshine of these lovely 
hills. 

“ Jim, dear, it is generous and entirely like 
you to ask us to make your place our head- 
quarters between engagements. 

“If we do it, it will be only because we all 
would be happier en famille. Even we, hard- 
ened materialists that we are, could not bring 
ourselves to use you. You know that, don’t 
you? So I have assumed that your offer is 
not only a kindness, but a genuine expression 
of regard for us; and we return to the full 
whatever you feel for us. 

“Jim, there are many things that I am 
denying myself to say to you ; and I find self- 
denial hard. It’s a worthy and laudable vir- 
tue which Silvette and I are trying to acquire 
in our old age, and it isn’t easy. 

“ There’s no news. Mrs. Wemyss seems to 
have fascinated your friend, Mr. Inwood. 
He’s a curious sort of man — rather melan- 
choly of temperament, I fancy. 

“We play a languid sort of polo now and 
222 


Compos Mentis 


then, dawdle in canoes, and sit up too late at 
cards. 

“ A lot of men are coming for the shooting. 
Mr. Rivett’s manager turned out several thou- 
sand pheasants and Hungarian partridges, it 
seems. The latter, they say, have vanished; 
the former seem disposed to wander into the 
front yard. 

“ Mrs. Lorrimore has departed with much 
of Judge Wicklow’s salary. Her stouter and 
prettier friend, Mrs. Wemyss, despoiled al- 
most everybody except Silvette and me. This 
letter is degenerating into gossip. It had to, 
or I might have been even more indiscreet. 

“ Jim, you are a good type of citizen when 
you’re at your best. Let me lecture you, won’t 
you ? Anyway, you’re helpless and in bed and 
miles away, and you can’t prevent me. 

“ So — be yourself. Go into a man’s busi- 
ness. Disregard your accomplishments, your 
cleverness at paraphrasing art. It doesn’t 
count in real life, all this facility with paint 
and pen and paper — your gay imitation of 
painter, writer, composer. They’re little gifts, 
Jim — meant for an hour of light leisure 
among the leisured — pleasant, but unimpor- 
tant accomplishments. When you court some 
223 


Japonette 


nice girl, some day, you’ll understand their 
full value — which is to amuse her, and later, 
I prophesy, the jolly little family of a home- 
returning business man. 

“ The years are before you still, Jim. Open 
the battle when you’re well enough. You will 
win out, for you are really not the man I 
have known. I wish I might have been a 
woman to bring out what you really are. 
Some woman will. Meanwhile give a friendly 
hand and a generous lift to a fellow who de- 
serves your respect and consideration — your 
other self. 

“ Good-by and good luck. 

“ Your cousin, 

“ Diana Tennant.” 

In a few days Edgerton began to experi- 
ence the intolerable sensations of a bone which 
is mending itself. 

He had become very restless and impatient; 
and, finally, the doctor let him wear his arm 
in a sling and go out to hunt for a job. 

He had no trouble in securing one — a small 
clerkship with Close & Co., ornamental iron 
work. He might have done even better. All 
iron men knew who James Edgerton 3d must 
224 


Compos Mentis 


be. Many friends of the old firm of Edgerton, 
Tennant & Co. might have offered him easier 
work and higher salary, but he not only went 
to none of them — he even avoided them. He 
had decided to discover what he really was 
worth. 

It rather surprised him to find out that the 
big, blue-eyed, snub-nosed Irishman, Mr. 
Dineen, whom he had met at Adriutha, was a 
director in Close & Co. Later, he discovered 
that Mr. Dineen was also interested in his own 
old firm, Edgerton, Tennant & Co., now re- 
constructed, but still bearing the ancient name. 
And after a while he learned that Mr. Dineen 
seemed to be interested in almost every house 
in New York that dealt in structural or orna- 
mental iron. 

Edgerton’s duties began with ledger work. 
And the evening that he drew his first pay, he 
wrote Diana: 

“ Dear Di : 

“ I’m getting fifteen dollars a week with 
Close & Co., ornamental iron. I have my first 
week’s wages in my pocket. As I pay no rent, 
I can live on it. 

“ It’s not uninteresting work. Somebody 
225 


Japonette 


said something about my going into the de- 
signing department as a draughtsman. That’s 
pretty quick advancement — if it comes. I’ll 
let you know if it does. 

“ My arm is about well. It’s still mummi- 
fied, of course, but that maddening sensation 
is gone. Town isn’t so bad. Of course, it’s 
rather hot and dusty, and, as usual, it looks 
dingy and mean in its characteristic October 
shabbiness — meaner for the glorious blue over- 
head and the pitiless sun exposing its few 
withered trees and its many architectural 
shams in the remorseless light of high heaven. 

“ But I am peculiarly happy. I have no 
servant; I dine at a French restaurant for sev- 
enty-five cents, and I prepare my own break- 
fast in the studio. Crackers and milk com- 
pose my luncheon at the price of ten pennies. 
And I never felt better. All this in case you 
are interested in such details. 

“ To answer your letter — I did not intend 
to write until I had nailed down a job and 
received my first pay envelope. Now I feel 
that I may. 

“ First, regarding your comments upon my 
artistic ability, you are perfectly right. I 
ought to have known it; I did know it, deep 
226 


Compos Mentis 


inside of me. I’m not the stuff that artists 
are made of. Eviter les contrefagons ! I was 
an imitation. I was not even a good amateur ; 
I’m not even equipped to really appreciate the 
best work in others. All I had was a monkey- 
like cleverness and the blank facility of a re- 
ceptive parrot; and I was idiot enough to 
contemplate an idle life of dabbling and 
fiddling with professions that better men 
dignify. 

“ I tell you, Di, I bid fair to turn into one 
of those horrors — a cultivated talker ! — the 
lowest type of incompetent. Drawing-rooms, 
studios, cafes are full of them, all telling one 
another what is what and how to do it. I was 
heading straight that way. My peers and 
companions would have been smatterers, in- 
structors in arts which the instructors couldn’t 
master — or they wouldn’t have become in- 
structors ! — men of one picture, or none at 
all ; of one book, one story, or of none at all, 
or of dozens, all still in their minds, or in 
unpublished manuscripts; men of one waltz, 
or several grand operas — I mean ideas for 
grand operas — all failures, all men who had 
mistaken their professions, self-deceived men, 
incompetent, hopeless, pitiable. 

227 


Japonette 


“ You said in your letter that one day I 
might meet a woman who could appreciate, at 
their real value, my very slim talents. Haven’t 
I met her, Di? Those clear eyes of yours 
pierced the flimsy fabric long since ; the 
trenchant sweetness of your tongue cut more 
than one knot for me. 

“If you demur, my answer is that I am 
here. Who sent me? A flanneled satrap, al- 
ready insidiously beguiled by idleness, al- 
ready reconciled to the status quo — how long 
before, and by what process of evolution, 
would my real self have awakened? Or 
would the degeneracy have ended only with 
life? 

“ I don’t know ; all I know is that you sent 
me about my business in the world. I walked 
to it in my sleep; awake, I follow it. Thus 
far, so far, Diana of the far white gods! 

“ Yours is the stronger character, so far. 
Let us await events. It may be, as you say, 
that the years will twist my path toward the 
possible woman you predict for me. I dined 
with Dr. Ellis last evening. His daughter will 
certainly grow up to be such a woman as you 
and I delight in. I told her that I hoped my 
path would twist toward her. She said she 
228 


Compos Mentis 


hoped so, too, very shyly. She is only fifteen 
— alas ! 

“ In the meanwhile my path runs straight 
to Close & Co., and I shall continue to travel 
it every day with my shovel and dinner pail 
— thanks to you, my loyal little cousin, who 
were plucky enough and merciful enough to 
tell me the merciless truth. 

“ Give my love to Silvette. My remem- 
brances to all. Accept for yourself my friend- 
ship. Do you remember those photographs I 
made of you as Japonette the day after we 
first met? I’ve developed them. Here is one. 

“ Yours sincerely, 

“ James Edgerton 3D.” 


Which letter resulted in an immediate in- 
terchange of notes: 

“ Dear Jim : 

“ Fifteen and eighteen are not far apart. A 
man can help Chance to twist his path through 
life. The resulting route is called the Path of 
Destiny. I think you have already started to 
travel it. I hope you are better. 


229 


“ Diana.” 


Japonette 


He replied: 

“ Dear Di : 

“ You meant that path which leads to Close 
& Co., didn’t you ? 

“ J. E. 3 D.” 


She answered: 

“ Dear Jim : 

“No, I meant the other path you men- 
tioned. Follow it for the next three years. 
Mr. Inwood says that little Miss Ellis is the 
most beautiful and winsome and intelligent 
and cultivated child he ever knew. Life is all 
before you, Jim. 

“ Diana.” 


He wrote: 

“ I’m in the designing department as 
draughtsman ! Mr. Rivett’s friend, Mr. 
Dineen, dropped in to have a chat with me. 
He’s a very decent fellow. . . . You don’t 
think that Mr. Rivett has inspired him to show 
me any unmerited favors, do you? It would 
make havoc of my present complacency. Try 
to find out. 

“ Jim.” 


230 


Compos Mentis 


She answered: 

“ Mr. Rivett isn’t to be pumped. I tried it. 
I’ll never try it again. Anyway, Jim, no favor 
can inject brains into a man; it can only stim- 
ulate what intellect he has. Don’t worry about 
favors. Neither Mr. Rivett nor Mr. Dineen 
are the men to injure their own affairs by the 
incompetent service of others. You can be 
perfectly certain that you are worth what is 
offered you if they have anything to do with it. 

“ Why don’t you fall in love with Christine ? 
She’s one of the sweetest girls I ever knew. I 
supposed she and you were on delightful terms 
once. Also, once, I thought she was inclined 
toward Mr. Inwood. But he seems to be 
monopolized by Mrs. Wemyss; and the poor 
child comes into my room in a forlorn sort of 
way — so white and limp these days that I’m 
wondering what this change in her means. 
Does it mean your absence? You’d tell me, 
wouldn’t you ? But I know you’re not the sort 
of man to win a young girl’s heart, and then 
coolly walk out of her life. It looks to me as 
though she had something on her mind. Dr. 
Billings has been here several times, and her 
mother is worried sick. 

231 


Japonette 


“ That’s all the gossip, except that the shoot- 
ing is in full blast here. A number of men 
came up for it — the usual sort of men who 
shoot, except one. He’s a Mr. Wallace, and 
very nice and a poor shot. He and I go out 
together sometimes, and he is forever making 
fun of himself and his perfectly rotten marks- 
manship, and he and I don’t care two raps 
whether we get anything or not. 

“ Mr. Inwood is the saddest young man I 
ever had the pleasure (?) of trying to ani- 
mate. Are all your friends as melancholy and 
temperamental? He haunts the terrace like 
a lost soul until Mrs. Wemyss annexes him. 
Christine does not seem to care for him ; 
she doesn’t seem to care for anybody these 
days. 

“ Colonel Curmew is a funny man. He has, 
apparently, devoted himself to me, and I have 
the greatest difficulty in getting away from 
him long enough to take a stroll with Mr. 
Wallace. Such a funny, strutty, sentimentally 
elaborate little man ! — with a rather horrid 
habit of staring. But he’s a crack shot, and 
popular here with the men. 

“ Good night, 

“ Diana.” 


232 


Compos Mentis 


She wrote next day, also : 

“Jim! My little Christine is in love — that’s 
what’s the matter ! I know it ; I’m absolutely 
sure of it. And with — oh, ye humorous gods 
and dryads ! — with your melancholy friend, 
Mr. Inwood. 

“And I want to tell you, Jim, that*I don’t 
like Mrs. Wemyss. She’s fat and selfish and 
— why does she drag that boy about with her 
all the time? I don’t believe he likes it. I 
don’t believe he’s so enamored of her. Maybe 
his low spirits come from too much of that 
fair and ample lady. I’m going to find out. I 
won’t have my little Christine ignored by any 
melancholy idiot who ever lived. 

“ Write me what you know about Mr. In- 
wood. 

“ How is Chance, and the twisted path, and 
little Miss Ellis? 

“ Scott Wallace and I managed to shoot a 
grouse. We both fired, and neither of us 
were inclined to claim the poor, dead, little 
thing. A keeper put it in his pocket. Mr. 
Wallace and I are going to take up target 
shooting hereafter. 


233 


“ Diana.” 


Japonette 


He wrote: “ 
Mrs. Wemyss? 


Inwood is all right. Who is 
“ Jim.” 


A week later he heard from her : “ I’ve 
found out from people in Keno. She was a 
Mrs. Atherstane — divorced hubby, and re- 
sumed her maiden name of Wemyss with the 
prefix Mrs. Did you ever hear of her ? Scott 
Wallace and I detest her. 

“ Diana.” 


He did not reply, partly because the con- 
stant recurrence of Wallace’s name in her let- 
ters had begun to annoy him — partly because 
what he had to say must be said to Inwood; 
and at that miserable young man he launched 
the following: 

“ Dear Billy : 

“ You’re a fine specimen. What are you, 
anyway — a lap dog or a Chow pup? Get rid 
of that woman! I don’t care whether or not 
you made an ass of yourself over her by sym- 
pathizing with her. Old Atherstane had no 
more mistresses than the majority of church 
pillars and public benefactors in town; and, 
234 


Compos Mentis 


anyway, it was not up to you to dry her 
weeps. 

“ Don’t make any mistake — the ci-devant 
Mrs. Atherstane can look out for herself. 
She needs no consideration from you; she 
doesn’t deserve any, either. What kind of a 
woman is she, anyhow — taking advantage of a 
chivalrous and conscientious boy who never 
did more than hold her hand and pat it, at 
most, when she told him she was lonely and 
unhappy, and needed a good man’s moral sup- 
port? 

“Rot! You’re not responsible for her. 
You’re not in honor bound to sit around and 
await her pleasure, now that she’s free to 
marry. She wouldn’t have you, anyway. 

“ You probably made an ass of yourself — 
probably talked too much. You’re not in 
honor bound, I tell you. And don’t make any 
mistake — she’s not going to marry. She’s 
having too good a time. I know that kind of 
woman, Billy. They never put their heads 
into the noose a second time; but they har- 
poon all the men they can, and they trail 
around with a lot of silly ginks like you. 

“If you don’t believe me, I’ll tell you how 
to put yourself out of your misery. Ask her 
235 


Japonette 


to marry you ; ask her flatly. You’ll wake up, 
then. I know what I’m saying. You do what 
I tell you, and then get back to first principles, 
and clear up all this nightmare between a 
sweet and plucky little girl and your own dam- 
fool self. Clear it up, I tell you. I know you, 
Billy. You have nothing to confess in regard 
to Mrs. Wemyss. Of course, you wouldn’t 
confess, anyway; but, thank God! there’s 
nothing to say except that you were a silly ass, 
and have learned better. 

“ Now, I’ve told you how to get clear of 
this petty and miserable affair. If you don’t 
do it, for Christine’s sake as well as for your 
own, you’re no man. 


“Jim Edgerton.” 


CHAPTER XI 


QUOD ERAT FACIENDUM 


ISC 


ITH the daily advent of men arriv- 
ing for the flight-shooting, now im- 
minent, Lillian Wemyss seemed to grow pret- 
tier and slimmer every day until the perfectly 
visible metamorphosis had produced radiant 
and brand-new creature. 

For the men who were now accumulating 
in billiard room and card room, who haunted 
stable and garage and kennel, were the sort 
of men who inspired the very breath of life- 
in a woman of her sort — big, handsome,, 
ruddy-faced, thick-necked men with large, in- 
discriminating tastes and an eternal readiness 
for anything from a half-broken horse to an 
unbroken woman, but heartily preferring them 
both bridlewise and registered. 

They tramped all over the place, on the ter- 
race, over the lawn, in to dinner; and the 
house echoed with large bantering voices, loud, 
237 


Japonette 


unfeigned laughter — and they rode hard and 
drank hard and played for heavy stakes, and 
were up and tramping all over the place by 
sunrise, sniffing for the frost which would 
bring the first night flight of woodcock from 
the north into the far-famed coverts of the 
Adriutha hills. 

And the best-looking, most humorous, and 
most reckless among them was Scott Wallace, 
a young giant of infinite jest, who began 
by pleasing himself with Diana and, out of the 
sheer perversity of humorous animal spirits, 
pretended to her that he scarcely knew one 
end of a shotgun from the other, which gave 
him a pretext for dawdling over the country 
with her, and making love to her until such 
time as the flight might send him seriously 
afield. 

So, as he cared nothing for the scattered 
pheasants and wilder and scarcer grouse, he 
amused himself and Diana by playing Winkle, 
now and then consoling himself with a diffi- 
cult shot, which satisfied him and left the girl 
none the wiser. 

But on Wallace Mrs. Wemyss had her blue 
eyes fixed with all the veiled alertness and 
objectless intensity of the sort of woman she 
238 


Quod Erat Faciendum 


was — a woman who would never be dunce 
enough to marry again. 

In the meanwhile, already exceedingly pop- 
ular with the shooting fraternity, she kept a 
mechanical hold on Inwood for no more rea- 
son than the matter-of-fact impulse which had 
prompted her to snap a leash on his collar the 
moment she set eyes on him after many 
months’ separation. 

To take him away from Christine had not 
been her object; she had no idea that he was 
interested in anybody except herself. She 
was perfectly confident that, given half a 
chance, men preferred her to any other wom- 
an ; and there was really no particular malice 
in her desire to give Scott Wallace an oppor- 
tunity to follow at her heels instead of Diana’s. 

For Mrs. Wemyss really needed nothing of 
men except admiration and uninterrupted at- 
tention. No deeper passion had ever moved 
her. She was ignorant of love, although ap- 
parently fashioned for it; immune to its law- 
lessness, although lid and ear and lip seemed 
to chorus the contrary. In the slightly veiled 
eyes there was really no promise, no signifi- 
cance in the full, sweet mouth — nothing to her 
except the superficial provocation which all 
239 


Japonette 


men mistook, and the laughing and ready 
friendship offered so prettily that no man ever 
refused. 

Inwood, searching the house and terrace 
over for Christine, discovering her at last in 
the moonlit rose garden, and, not daring to 
join her after all, so faint hearted he had be- 
come, walked moodily into the billiard room 
where a noisy lot of people were enjoying 
themselves. 

Wallace, standing between Diana and 
Lillian Wemyss, his broad back against a 
billiard table, was evidently having a splendid 
time ; and Inwood halted, irresolute, one hand 
in his pocket crushing Edgerton’s letter into 
a wad. 

Lillian Wemyss caught sight of him, smiled 
instinctively, but her blue eyes reverted to 
Wallace. There was something in her atti- 
tude, as she stood in the full splendor of her 
somewhat ample beauty, that subtly repelled 
Inwood; and he swung on his heel, somber 
young head bent, moving toward the door by 
which he had entered. 

“ Mr. Inwood ! ” called Diana across the 
hubbub, “ will you play bottle pool with us ? ” 

He turned, smiling to her. 

240 


Quod Erat Faciendum 


“ Thanks, I’m not up to it,” and resumed 
his way out. 

“Billy!” said Mrs. Wemyss, “I wish you 
to play ! ” 

“ No, thanks,” he returned coolly, and con- 
tinued toward the door. 

It was his first exhibition of insubordina- 
tion, and Lillian Wemyss, surprised, did not 
propose to stand it, particularly in the pres- 
ence of these two people. Scott Wallace 
seemed to be almost ready for his leash; it 
was a bad example for him, this insubordina- 
tion of young Inwood. 

She looked anxiously at Diana. 

“ I’m afraid Billy Inwood is not well,” she 
said. “ I’ve thought so for several days. 
Those swamps where you men shoot must be 
full of malaria.” 

“ Not a bit,” said Wallace, laughing. 

“ How do you know? ” asked Diana. “ You 
never go into them, you lazy thing ! ” 

Mrs. Wemyss hesitated, listening to the 
banter that passed between Diana and Scott 
Wallace, which slightly excluded her for the 
moment. 

Then she made up her mind that her au- 
thority over Inwood must be asserted at once, 
241 


Japonette 

and that she had time enough to eliminate 
Diana later. 

She turned and saw Inwood passing the 
windows outside on the terrace. The next 
moment she was on the terrace, too, and he 
turned slowly to confront her. 

“ Billy, ” she said gently, “ are you feeling 
perfectly well ? ” 

“ Perfectly, thanks.” 

“ Then why didn’t you remain at my re- 
quest ? ” 

“ I didn’t care to.” 

“ But I asked you,” she said, surprised. 

“ Yes, I know you did.” 

“ Well ? ” she asked, astonished. 

He had been looking away from her out 
over the misty moonlit river. Now he turned. 

“ Lillian,” he said, “ do you honestly care 
for me ? ” 

“ Billy, what a question ! ” 

“ Yes, it’s one kind of question. . . . Do 
you ? ” 

“ You know I do. How can you ask such 
a ” 

“ Do you love me ? ” 

“ What!” 

“Do you?” 


242 


Quod Erat Faciendum 


“ Billy, what on earth is ” 

“ Wait, please. Let me ask you again, Lil- 
lian. Are you honestly in love with me ? ” 

“ I don’t know what you mean by suddenly 

and abruptly questioning — demanding ” 

“ Please answer.” 

“ You have no right to doubt it. You know 
perfectly well what we have been to each 

other — even before ” 

“ What have we been ? ” 

“ I supposed we had been in love,” she said 
with sad dignity. “ I wrote you while I was 
abroad, and — I don’t write many letters.” 

“ Then you are in love with me. ... We 
are in love. Is that true as you understand 
it?” 

“You silly boy — of course!” 

He stood stock still for a moment, tasting 
all the misery he had stored up for himself. 
Finally, he found his voice. 

“If that is so,” he said, “ we ought to be 
engaged.” 

“Oh, Billy! Are you jealous?” 

She laughed, radiant, delighted to feel the 
leash tighten in her soft little hand once more. 

“ No,” he said, “ I am not jealous ; but, if we 
are to marry, it is time people understood it” 
243 


Japonette 


“ Do you mean these people ? ” 

“ I mean everybody/’ 

“ You don’t mean to announce our engage- 
ment this winter ? ” she asked uneasily. 

“ I mean to announce it now.” 

“ Here!” 

“ Here — to-night.” 

“ I — I don’t wish to/’ she faltered. “ You 
are unreasonable.” 

“ Is there any reason why people shouldn’t 
know it ? ” 

“ My dear boy, one doesn’t announce such 
important matters on the impulse of the mo- 
ment.” 

“If I’m going to marry you, I want people 
to know it now ! ” he said. 

“ I’ve explained that I did not wish it.” 

“Why?” 

“ Why? There are a million perfectly good 
reasons.” 

“ Give me one, Lillian.” 

She stood considering, her crook’d finger 
under her chin, blue eyes taking his meas- 
ure from time to time. Evidently happiness 
too long deferred had made him unmanage- 
able. She never thought of doubting her 
power. Probably he needed discipline. It was 
244 


Quod Erat Faciendum 


most annoying to be annoyed at such a time, 
with all these men here, and Scott Wallace 
already left too long alone with Diana at the 
billiard table. Discipline was certainly what 
Inwood needed. 

“ Billy,” she said, “ come in and play bottle 
pool.” 

“ Am I to tell them that we are to be mar- 
ried?” 

“ No,” she said petulantly. 

“ When may I tell them?” 

“ Not at all. Do you think a year of liberty 
is sufficient for a woman who has suffered 
what I have? I don’t wish to marry you or 
anybody — yet. I haven’t made up my mind 
to do it at all,” she added with a tiny flash of 
rare anger, for her not very sensitive nerves 
were beginning to feel the pressure. 

“ Lillian, I want to know now. It is only 
square to me to ” 

“ Billy, if you continue to insist, you will 
end by seriously offending me. You have an- 
noyed me enough already.” 

“ By asking you to set a definite date for 
our impending marriage ? ” 

“ It is not impending ! ” she retorted, ex- 
asperated, as Diana and Wallace came out to- 
245 


Japonette 


gether and walked toward the farther end of 
the terrace. 

“ Do you refuse to marry me? ” 

“Yes, I do; I am sorry. I really cannot 
help how you feel about it. This year of lib- 
erty has been a year of happiness. I don’t 
wish to marry. I don’t know when I may 
wish to. I am perfectly contented ; and that’s 
the truth, Billy.” 

“ So — you refuse me ? ” 

“ For the present — yes.” 

“No; you must answer me for all time, to- 
night.” 

She nodded. “Very well, then; I refuse 
definitely — and for all time. . . . And, Billy 
Inwood, you have brought this calamity upon 
yourself.” 

But Lillian’s anger was always short-lived ; 
she was already sorry for him. Besides, she 
was convinced that he would continue to dan- 
gle. It had been her experience with men 
that they were never reconciled to the unob- 
tainable. 

So with one of her swift, smiling changes 
of feeling she held out her hand to Inwood. 
He took it. 

“ Are you very angry ? ” she asked. 

246 


Quod Erat Faciendum 


“ No.” 

“ Do we part — friends ? ” 

“We do, indeed,” he said so sincerely that 
the smile faded on her face, and into her lim- 
ited mind flickered a momentary doubt. But, 
no, it was not possible ; for Lillian had never 
really been able to doubt herself. Certain, 
once more, that this young man would appear 
at heel when whistled for, she returned his 
friendly pressure with an encouraging one, 
laughed, and turned lightly toward the house. 
He accompanied her to the door and bowed 
her in. 

Then the strength seemed to ooze out of his 
back and legs; he dropped on to a marble 
bench, and sat there in the moonlight, his face 
buried in his hands. 

How long he had been there he did not 
know, when a light touch and a soft voice 
close to his ear aroused him, and, looking up, 
he saw Diana inspecting him. 

“ As dejected as all that, Mr. In wood? ” she 
asked, as he rose to his feet. 

“ Not dejected, Miss Tennant/’ 

“ Why, then, these attitude ? Wherefore 
those woe, young sir ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” he said listlessly. 

247 




Japonette 


But she did — or thought she did; so she 
took his arm in friendly fashion and strolled 
about with him in the moonlight until she pre- 
tended that the beauty of the night tempted 
her toward the garden. 

He was alarmed for an instant, and hung 
back, scanning the rose garden with anxious 
eyes; but he could see nothing of Christine, 
and presently succumbed to Diana’s whim. 

To and fro among the late roses they paced, 
the girl light-heartedly rallying him on his 
soberness and lack of animation, until he 
laughed a little and squared his shoulders, and 
drew in a full deep breath of the soft air. 

“ I thought every man flirted if offered an 
opportunity/’ said Diana, “ but I’ve flung my- 
self at your head in vain, young man. Evi- 
dently there’s some caterpillar at work on that 
damask cheek, or I’d be more generously ap- 
preciated.” 

He laughed again, and tried to tell her how 
deeply he was appreciating her, but she shook 
her head and finally dropped his arm. 

“ I’m going to the house,” she said. 
“ There’s an arbor across the garden. If 
you’ll wait for me there, perhaps I’ll return. 
Will you?” 


248 


Quod Erat Faciendum 


“ Certainly,” he said. 

So she turned and sped away among the 
roses, and he stood and watched her until she 
crossed the terrace and vanished into the 
house. 

For a few minutes he remained where he 
was standing ; then, with a sigh, he swung on 
his heel and started toward the arbor, fumbling 
for his cigarette case as he walked. 

At the entrance he paused to strike a light 
— and remained motionless until the match 
burned close to his fingers. Then it fell on 
the gravel ; he dropped the cigarette beside it. 

As he entered the arbor, a white figure, ly- 
ing full length on a swinging seat, lifted its 
head from its arms, then sat up hastily. 

“ Is that you, Miss Rivett ? ” 

“ Yes.” . . . She rose to her feet, holding 
to one of the swinging chains. Moonlight fell 
across her white, confused face. 

“ May I remain?” he asked unsteadily. 
“ Would you rather have me go ? ” 

“ No. ... I am going. . . . My gown is 
damp. ... I will go immediately.” 

“ Were you asleep? ” 

She hesitated; but there was in her only 
honesty. 


249 


Japonette 


“ No,” she said. 

“ Then you must have heard my step on the 
gravel ? ” 

She shook her head. 

“ Then what were you doing out here 
all alone with your head buried in your 
arms ? ” 

“ Thinking,” she said. . . . “ Would you 
care to walk to the house with me, Mr. In- 
wood ? ” 

“ Would you mind remaining here a little 
while?” 

“ My gown is damp with dew.” 

“ Then perhaps we had better go ? ” 

“ I think so.” 

Neither stirred. 

“ It is so warm and beautiful to-night,” he 
said, “ that I can't imagine anybody taking 
cold out here.” 

“ It is a bad outlook for the flight shooters.” 

“ Yes, indeed. There is no frost in this 
wind.” 

“ It may shift overnight,” she said. ‘‘If 
to-morrow is a magnificent and cloudless day, 
with just a hint of silver in the horizon blue, 
then it means a frost and a flight to-morrow 
night.” 


250 


Quod Erat Faciendum 


“ And that,” he said, “ would mean an end 
to — the roses.” 

“ Yes.” 

“ An end to anybody sitting out here again 
this year.” 

“ Probably.” 

“ So it seems a pity,” he went on, “ not to 
enjoy it while we may, Miss Rivett.” 

“ I have enjoyed it — for an hour.” 

“ You are not very generous.” 

“Why? You may remain another hour if 
you wish ? ” she said, smiling. 

“ Alone?” 

“ I was alone during my hour.” 

“ I have been alone for an entire year,” he 
said under his breath. 

“What?” 

She had heard him, but her abrupt question 
seemed to have been beaten out sharply from 
her startled heart. 

He made no reply; she stood, one hand 
clasping the chain, not looking at him, con- 
scious of the clamor of her heart. 

“ Miss Rivett,” he said, “ am I too much of 
a fool — too hopeless a thing for you to listen 
to?” 

“ What do you mean ? ” she said faintly. 

251 


Japonette 


“ I mean that — this night, now, for the first 
time since I knew you — I can use, decently, 
honorably, whatever liberty of speech you per- 
mit me.” 

Presently her white hand relaxed, the chain 
slipped through her fingers; she sank down 
on the swinging seat. 

After a moment he stepped toward her. She 
raised her head in the moonlight, and he saw 
the tears in her eyes. 

“ Christine, ” he said under his breath. 

“ Are we free to speak to each other ? ” she 
faltered. 

“ Thank God, yes ! ” 

“ Thank God,” she whispered. 

But for a long, long while they did not use 
the inestimable privilege of free, articulate 
speech. There seemed to be no need, of it 
further than apparently irrelevant fragments 
such as, “My darling!” and, “Oh, Billy, if 
you only knew ! ” 

Far away beyond them Diana came out on 
the terrace with young Wallace, and gazed 
very earnestly down at the rose garden. 

“ Shall we walk there ? ” he said persua- 
sively. 

Suddenly Diana’s face sparkled. “ Oh, 

252 


Quod Erat Faciendum 


dear,” she said, “ there’s somebody down there 
already — two of them ! And — and it looks to 
me as though they were spooning. What a 
world this is, Mr. Wallace ! I think I’d better 
go in and play bottle pool.” 

That night she wrote to Edgerton : 

“ Dear Jim : 

“ You have not answered my letter — but 
men were made to pardon. 

“ Somehow — and I don’t quite know how — 
that wretched and melancholy Inwood man, 
fortified by a gentle push from me, contrived 
to get up sufficient momentum to carry my 
little Christine by assault. The darling has 
just been in here to whisper her happiness to 
me. We wept together, which is our feminine 
fashion of uttering three cheers. 

“ There is, of course, papa to inform. I 
don’t envy Christine. Papa has a will of his 
own, but so has his infant daughter. 

“ Even yet I can’t understand why this In- 
wood boy has lost all this time dingling and 
dangling around Mrs. Wemyss. Evidently he 
wasn’t doing it because he was having a good 
time. I was inclined to suppose him either 
blighted or a mooner. 

253 


Japonette 


“ But you should see the change in your in- 
tknate friend now! Why, Jim, he fairly 
pranced up to me as I was saying good night, 
and he wrung my hand and said, ‘ Thanks, 
awf’lly, Miss Tennant ! ’ And all I had done 
was to give him a rendezvous with me in an 
arbor, and then go off to walk with Scott Wal- 
lace. 

“ Scott’s a nice boy. You’d like him ; he’s a 
terrible tease. It seems that he’s really a dead 
wing shot, and has just been jollying me all 
this time. I really enjoy him, which is more 
than I can say for the remainder of the sport- 
ing fraternity now investing this place. 
They’re a hard young lot, without, perhaps, 
being really very hard; but they are a loud, 
careless, irresponsible bunch of wealthy young 
men who, as far as I can learn, spend their 
entire time in shooting at something or other, 
including clay birds. 

“ They seem to be Wall Street men when 
occupied at all, and all betray a very healthy 
respect for Mr. Rivett. People say he is a 
factor to be reckoned with in New York; but 
I don’t care. He’s nice to me, and his wife 
is adorable. As for Christine, I dearly love 
Jher, Jim. No girl is more fitted for happiness, 
254 


Quod Erat Faciendum 

and I’m glad she’s got her Inwood boy at 
last. 

“ And now, Jim, dear, there are two matters 
which very sorely perplex me ; and, somehow, 
I turn to you to help me solve them. . . . No, 
only one of them, because I shall not bother 
about the other matter yet. 

“ But about the matter which is really nearer 
my heart, Jim — we must leave this place; and 
the reason is this : Jack Rivett is making him- 
self miserable over Silvette. 

“ Silvette doesn’t love him ; at least, I don’t 
think she does. She couldn’t do it honorably, 
anyway. She told me so, and I quite see it, 
because she and I are employed here under 
the Rivetts’ roof, practically in a position of 
trust, and dedicated to their service. 

“ It is not a loyal thing to permit the son 
of the house to lose his head, and Silvette tries 
so hard not to let him. But he’s doing it, and 
she can’t keep him from being nice to her ; and 
she and I know perfectly well what his father’s 
plans for him are, and that they include a 
fashionable marriage. 

“ Of course, that argues well for Christine. 
The Inwoods are fashionable people, are they 
not ? But poor Silvie ! Alas ! her connection 

255 


Japonette 


with your race isn’t near enough to impress 
Jack’s father; besides, Silvette doesn’t love 
him, and the boy is in a bad way all around. 

“ Now, what ought we to do? If we offer 
to sever social and business relations with Mr. 
Rivett, he will ask why we do it. 

“ Shall we tell him ? Is that square to poor 
Jack? Or shall we lie? Or shall we simply 
remain and let Jack suffer and make Silvie 
miserable ? 

“ Oh, wise young sir, inform a suppliant at 
your knee ! 

“ There is nothing more to tell you about, 
except that your progress makes me very 
happy. You are doing only what you would 
ultimately have done without any impudent 
advice from me. You have found yourself, 
Jim ; you are climbing the rungs very quickly. 

“ Jim, I am not yet very old — but I might 
easily be younger. ... I was thinking the 
other day — and to-night — that sometime I 
shall be too old and unattractive to practice 
this not very dignified profession ; and I’m dis- 
inclined to do anything more strenuous. I 
don’t want to struggle and grub and starve 
along respectably as a feminine physician. It’s 
too late for that, anyway. 

256 


Quod Erat Faciendum 


“ So I don’t know what to do, ultimately, 
unless I accomplish what I started out to do 
— marry a wealthy man. I mean the first 
agreeable one I encounter. 

“ Well, I won’t bother with that problem 
to-night ; my head aches a little. 

“ Good night, Jim. 

“ Japonette.” 

Diana finished her letter, sealed and stamped 
it, and kissed the superscription. She always 
did when she wrote his name. 

Then she laid her aching temples on her 
arms and, leaning limply on the desk, thought 
about him. 

Hers was a strange, sweet pride in him 
— a fierce jealousy lest he should not take 
the place in the world to which he was 
entitled, and prove himself every inch a 
man. 

Nor did she pretend to hide from herself 
what his return among his own friends must 
ultimately mean. If the love he had offered 
her had not been totally extinguished by her 
light mockery and smiling insolence, then this 
return to his own set would do it ultimately. 
The standards that measured women there 

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Japonette 


would be fatal to her; nor could he choose 
but apply them, sooner or later. 

She knew this when she sent him back 
among his own sort. She realized perfectly 
that if any love for her survived her irony 
and flippancy — her airy but trenchant scorn — 
- it could not survive very long when he came 
to his cool-headed and reasoning self, and 
looked around him at the women, and at the 
families and relatives of the women among 
whom he had always lived. 

Already he had spoken of little Miss Ellis 
— a mere child, of course — yet — yet it was a 
straw prophesying a change in the wind to 
her. 

She knew ; she had accomplished what she 
had desired. She had done this thing to her- 
self, to her whole life, for his sake. What 
more could she wish for? 

Sick at heart, she lifted her throbbing head 
and kissed his name once more where she had 
written it on the envelope. Then she placed 
it on the desk, and lay down on the bed to 
wait for Silvette before ringing for the maid 
who attended them; and after a little while 
she fell asleep. 


258 


CHAPTER XII 


NUNC AUT NUNQUAM 


01 


*ARM weather continued; no flight 
occurred. The men thrashed about 
with the dogs after grouse and a few native 
woodcock bred in the willows along the river, 
or rode, motored, and played cards. One or 
two had to give up, and return to the city. 

Colonel Curmew was at his best on these 
gay occasions — gallant, jocose, busy, every- 
body’s friend, including Jack Rivett’s, who 
quietly began to hate him. 

In the midst of the general tension and ex- 
pectancy concerning the long-awaited flight, 
Christine one morning entered her father’s 
study and found the author of her being con- 
ferring with Mr. Dineen. 

“ This won’t do, Christine,” he said. “ I’m 
busy.” 

“ No, it won’t do,” she admitted, looking so 
significantly at Mr. Dineen that the jolly, big 
Irishman laughed. 


259 


Japonette 


“ You want me to go out! ” he said, shaking 
an enormous forefinger at her. 

“ Please — for a few minutes.” 

“ Sure,” said Mr. Dineen with an amused 
glance at Rivett, who sat inspecting his off- 
spring with a face entirely devoid of expres- 
sion. 

When the big Mr. Dineen had closed the 
door behind him, Christine, a trifle pale, walked 
resolutely to her father and laid her hand on 
his shoulder. 

“ Dad?” 

“What?” 

“ I’ve practically asked Billy Inwood to 
marry me.” 

Her father’s eyes bored through and through 
her. 

“ Who did the asking, Chrissy ? ” 

“ Both of us.” 

“What?” he barked. 

“ It wasn’t asking, exactly. I have loved 
him for a year, and he has loved me. There 
has been a misunderstanding.” 

“ About what ? ” 

Plis daughter’s eyes never flinched. 

“ About a point of honor, father,” she said 
quietly. 


260 


Nunc Aut Nunquam 


He grunted. 

She went on, still resting her hand on his 
shoulder. 

“ We were very unhappy ; but the point of 
honor involved straightened itself out. . . . 
I happened to be in the rose arbor that even- 
ing. He came in by accident. . . . After we 
had talked a little, he told me that he was free 
to speak if I would listen to him. . . . Then, 
somehow, we merely looked at each other, and 
— and presently — presently we kissed each 
■other. ... I don’t remember much else . . . 
except that I said I would marry him — before 
he asked me ” 

“ Did you also set the date ? ” inquired her 
father sarcastically. 

“ No. . . . Mother and I are considering. 
. . . Are you happy over it, dad ? ” 

“ Not violently.” 

“ Why?” 

“ I don’t know anything about him,” he 
snapped. 

“ Yes, you know that I’m in love with 
him.” 

“ Certainly ; of course. Very worthy young 
man, no doubt.” 

“ Also,” continued his daughter calmly, 
261 


Japonette 


“ you know that Jim Edgerton is his closest 
friend.” 

“ That,” said Rivett, “ counts some.” 

“ And mother likes him,” concluded the 
girl. 

Her father sat staring at her in silence. 
Suddenly she put her arms around his neck* 
and the little man hid his spectacles on her 
breast for a second. 

“ Thank you, dad, darling,” she whis- 
pered. 

“ Chrissy — Chrissy — so soon ! I wanted 
you awhile yet.” . . . He jerked his head 
free, produced a handkerchief, and began 
busily to polish his eyeglasses. 

“ All right,” he said brusquely, “ Til talk it 
over with your mother. . . . She knows. . . . 
She knows more than I do. They wouldn’t 
believe that in Wall Street, but it’s true.” 

“ Dad?” 

“ Yes, child.” 

“ Couldn’t we live with you and mother ? ” 

“ Sure. D’you think I’d let any young 
jackanapes take you entirely away? You tell 
him I’ll scalp him if he talks that kind of thing 
to you.” . . . He laughed harshly. “ But I’m 
a fool, Chrissy; you and I are talking foolish. 
262 


Nunc Aut Nunquam 


... You won’t come back to stay. You 
won’t want to.” 

" I will ! ” 

“ No, dear; you don’t know yet. . . . Your 
mother and I made our own home. It was a 
rough one, Chrissy, but it was ours. You’ll 
do the same ultimately. It’s part of the 
game. . . . Tell your young man to come 
here.” 

The girl slipped away; in a few moments 
Inwood knocked and entered. Mr. Rivett 
gave him a level and murderous look. 

“ How about that complication you got 
yourself into ? ” he asked harshly. 

Inwood turned scarlet. 

“ I’m out of it.” 

“ With honor?” 

“ Honorably.” 

“ What was it?” 

“ You don’t mean to ask me that? ” 

“ Yes, I do ! . . . But I didn’t expect an an- 
swer. . . . Can you support my little girl de- 
cently ? ” 

“ Decently.” 

“ Not in the style to which I have accus- 
tomed her ? ” 

“ No, sir.” 


263 


Japonette 


“ All right,” he snapped. 

After a silence the young fellow said : 

“ Do you disapprove of me? ” 

“ How the devil can I ? I don’t know you. 
If you make my little girl a good husband, I’ll 
love you like a son ; if you don’t, I’ll — kill you. 
You look all right; but there’s no use talking. 
. . . You show me what stuff you’re made of, 
and I’ll do my part.” 

“ All right,” said Inwood, smiling. 

Something in his smile interested Rivett. 

“ Was your mother a Lawrence ? ” he de- 
manded suddenly. 

“ She was born Elizabeth Lawrence.” 

“ Betty Lawrence,” he repeated, staring at 
the younger man. 

“ Did you know her ? ” asked Inwood. 

“ I taught her in school. . . . Betty Law- 
rence. . . . Only two people ever smiled like 
that — you and your mother. ... You have 
good blood in you, Inwood. ... I know your 
father — in Wall Street. We are on good 
terms. . . . Don’t ever be a fool again, will 
you?” 

" No, sir.” 

They shook hands seriously. As Inwood 
left, Dineen came in. 

264 


Nunc Aut Nunquam 


Rivett looked at Dineen without speaking 
for a full minute, then he said slowly: 

“ My daughter is going to be married.” 

“God bless my soul!” ejaculated the big 
Irishman — “ not that child ! ” 

“Yes; I guess she means business, John.” 

“ When ? — in the name of the saints ! ” 

“ When she’s ready, I presume. . . . She’s 
a good girl. . . . They’re good children. 
They’ve stayed as long as they could. Their 
time is nearly up. . . . But the smallest hut is 
a big barn when the children have taken wing. 
... I wish I could have seen more of my 
father and mother. . . . But I had to go out 
into a lean world and hunt a living.” 

“ The best of us have passed that way,” ob- 
served Dineen ; and, after a moment : “ Who’s 
the lucky divil, Jacob?” 

“ Young Inwood.” 

“Stuart Inwood’s boy?” 

“ That’s the one.” 

Dineen lit a cigar and, drawing it into vapor- 
ous action, ruminated with enormous thumbs 
joined. 

“ It’s good stock,” he said, finally ; “ none 
better betwixt the Bowling Green and Pat- 
roon Van Courtlandt’s old shebang. There’s 
265 


Japonette 


money, too; and an opera box and a bit of 
a shack at Newport. What kind of a lad 
is it?” 

“ He can look me in the face,” said Rivett. 
“ Otherwise he looks like everybody else of 
his sort, and probably resembles them, too. 
Ah ! ” — he broke out angrily — “ these sleek* 
headed, tailor-made, smooth-faced young pups 
from New York, with their pleasant man- 
ners when they want anything, and their ways 
and means and by-ways and ten-cent brains — 
God ! Dineen, do they really ever turn into 
men? Answer me that! You’ve lived long 
enough to see a new-born snob grow to be 
thirty. Do they ever turn into anything ex* 
cept the harmless fools they’re born ? ” 

Dineen slowly revolved his thumbs and 
squinted at a sunbeam, while the smoke from 
the cigar in his cheek rose to the ceiling in a 
straight, thin column. 

“ Some of them become men,” he said de- 
liberately. “ The most o’ them is born spots 
and rots; or, if they’re not, college addles ’em. 
But, God be praised ! if it wasn’t for them 
the good people of Reno, Palm Beach, and 
Paris, France, would starve entirely. . . . 
Jacob, they say there’s a use even for the San 
266 


Nunc Aut Nunquam 


Jose scale ; and cursing would become a lost 
art barring the mosquito.” 

“ What do you know about young Inwood ?” 
asked Rivett. 

“ Nothing; he’s a broker.” 

“ Then we’ve nothing to learn, I guess,” said 
Rivett dryly, “ unless he gets into the papers. 
. . . Well, my wife likes him. . . . She’s al- 
ways right, John. I’ll go and talk to her 
presently. . . . What were you saying 
about young Edgerton before my daughter 
came ? ” 

“ I said that he’s the same as all the Edger- 
tons. By jiminy! I started him on ink wells 
to see would he stand for it, and he was there 
every morning at seven ; and he cleaned those 
ink wells and desks till nobody knew them — 
with his busted arm and all. Then I set him 
at the ledgers, and I let him stew for a week. 
A week was enough to see a good man wast- 
ing his fist and eyes at fifteen per. 

“ ‘ G’wan into the designing room,’ I said 
to him, using Doolan as meejum for my re- 
marks ; and I let him stew there with his com- 
pass and his tracing paper, doping out the 
work of worse than he. 

“ Then I gave Williamson the kitty-wink. 
267 


Japonette 


* Give us a pair of gates for a gentleman’s 
estate/ said Williamson, very damn polite, 
knowing who was backin’ the lad for a place. 
. . . They’re using the sketch now.” 

“ I told you so,” said Rivett calmly. 

“ Ah, go on ! I told you so ! Let it go at 
that, Jacob. So I talked to Everly, and Everly 
sent him into the laboratory. When he isn’t 
there he’s nosing around the shops, or asking 
questions of Cost and McCorkle over in Jer- 
sey, or he’s investigating the Holmes Con- 
struction plant.” 

“ He’s got his eye on the game.” 

“ Sure ; it’s in him. There’s iron in every 
Edgerton. They’re all full of ore. He’s taken 
longer to open his eyes than the usual litter, 
that’s all. . . . Got playing the art game, you 
say — like a kitten with a paper ball. . . . 
There’s art in him, too, I guess. Those gates 
were all right. . . . But — you mean to give 
him his chance ? ” 

Rivett nodded. “ I am Edgerton, Tennant 
& Co. I’d like to have Edgerton go back there 
some day. . . . They were square people. . . . 
I might have used them a little easier. . . . 
My wife likes Edgerton. . . . She wishes 
it.” 


268 


Nunc Aut Nunquam 

“ She wants him to have his chance,” mused 
Dineen. 

“ What she wants, / want,” said Rivett. 
. . . And I might have been easier on Ed- 
gerton, Tennant & Co. ... I would have been 
— if we hadn’t needed the plant.” 

Dineen nodded gravely. 

“Sure! A poor corporal of industry like 
you, Jake, needs what he can pick up out o’ 
the ash can.” 

For a full minute neither spoke. A slight 
flush faded from Rivett’s cheek bones. 

“You damned Irishman,” he said, wincing, 
“ when are you going back ? ” 

“ To-night, I think. . . . There’s an ash can 
I haven’t raked over — the Carrol-Baker Com- 
pany.” 

“ You’d better fix that,” said Rivett dryly ; 
“ there may be a lump of slag or two we can 
use for filling in ballast.” 

Dineen winked, rose, deposited the ashes 
from his cigar on the window ledge, and 
sauntered forth — to meet Jack walking swiftly 
and firmly toward his father’s study. 

“ Hello, young man ! ” exclaimed Dineen, 
“ is the house afire, or has the brown jug be- 
low run dry ? ” 


269 


Japonette 


“ No fear,” said the young man, smiling, 
but continuing on his way. Dineen looked 
after him with shrewd, blue eyes. 

“ I’m a monkey,” he said to himself, “ if 
that young man isn’t on some such errand as 
took his sister to the same place an hour ago. 
If he is, God help him! for Jacob’s still sore 
all over with the news from the front stoop.” 

Jack knocked, and his father, who had set- 
tled himself for five minutes’ hard thinking, 
rapped out : “ Who’s there ? ” 

“ It’s Jack. May I come in? ” 

“ Come on,” said his father grimly, “ I 
am — ” but catching sight of his son’s face he 
stopped short. 

“ Father?” 

“ What ? ” snapped Rivett senior, instinct- 
ively squaring his shoulders. 

“ May I talk to you as two men ought to 
talk together, or must I assume the attitude 
of a child to its father?” 

“ Talk as you feel. I had a notion that you 
were still my son — maybe I’m mistaken. In 
that case you may try to bully me if you care 
to. Go on.” 

“ I didn’t mean that, dad.” 

270 


I 


Nunc Aut Nunquam 

“ I know you didn’t ; but you’ve come in 
here with your mind already made up that I 
won’t do what you want me to do. That’s no 
good, Jack. Go into everything cocksure that 
you’ll win out. It’s the only way you stand 
any chance at all. Proceed.” 

The boy sat down and gazed absently out 
of the window ; after a few moments he 
turned his head and looked at his father. 

“ Dad,” he said, “ I’m in love.” 

Rivett senior regarded him in angry amaze- 
ment, for a second only ; then the grim mask 
of a face resumed its weasel-eyed and ex- 
pressionless immobility. 

“ Babies have to go through teething, too,” 
he observed. 

Jack said pleasantly : “ Wouldn’t you rather 
I came to you and told you about it? ” 

“ Yes ; a boy is all right who tells his par- 
ents. Who is the girl ? ” 

“ Silvette.” 

An unaccustomed color dyed Mr. Rivett’s 
pallid temples. 

“Oh! Have you informed her?” 

“ Yes.” 

Rivett’s teeth met under the walrus mus- 
tache, parted, met, and ground together; but 
271 


Japonette 

his son saw only the jaw muscles move slightly 
in the lean face. 

“ Silvette is a — an interesting young girl,” 
said Rivett with an effort; “but she is one of 
my employees, and not the sort of woman I 
wish my son to marry.” 

“ So she says,” observed Jack quietly. 

“Who says what?” 

“ Silvette said exactly what you have just 
said — that she is your employee, and her sense 
of honor will not permit her to listen to me.” 

“ Oh ! . . . She said that, did she ? . . . 
Oh! . . . Did she tell you to tell me her an- 
swer? ” 

“ No ; she told me that if I uttered one word 
on the subject to you, she would leave your 
service in twenty-four hours.” 

His father’s eyes fairly bored into him like 
augers. 

“ And yet you’ve done it? ” 

“ I’ve taken the chance — yes.” 

“ Why?” 

“ Because I love her.” 

“ You’ll have that kind of pip several times 
before you pick the right one, Jack.” 

“ No; I’m like you.” 

“What’s that?” 


272 


Nunc Aut Nunquam 


“ I say that I am like you, dad. ... I don’t 
believe there was ever anybody but mother. 
Was there? ” 

“ How about that little Beaumont girl you 
met at Hot Springs ? ” asked his father. 

“ I taught her to shoot a pistol. I liked her, 
but that was all. Silvette is different.” 

Somehow, the memory of a girl he had once 
taught came into Mr. Rivett’s mind — Betty 
Lawrence — who smiled as' nobody else ever 
had smiled except her own son — years after- 
wards — years and years afterwards. 

He raised his sunken head and looked hard 
at his son. 

“ I don’t want you to marry her, Jack,” he 
said. 

“ Why?” 

“ I had other plans for you. There are girls 
in New York who ” 

“ There are girls everywhere, but only one 
Silvette Tennant; and I am like you, father.” 

“ You don’t show it now,” retorted Rivett 
sharply. “ Do you think I’d spoil my chances 
— no, my certainty in New York, as you are 
trying to do? ” 

“ You only got as far as Mills Corners, dad ; 
and you had not even seen New York.” 

273 


Japonette 


“ I don’t want you to marry her,” repeated 
his father doggedly. 

“ Why ? — once more.” 

“ Because — I don’t know anything about 
her. She gambles, too ! ” 

“ Would you care whether the girl you 
meant to pick out for me plays cards for 
stakes ? ” 

“ I certainly — ” He stopped abruptly, then : 
“ She smokes and drinks like a man ! ” 

“ Get some woman to ask you to dine with 
her at the Convent Club some evening,” said 
Jack, smiling. 

“Who is Silvette Tennant, anyway?” de- 
manded his father. 

“ You ought to know something about the 
Tennants, dad. You reorganized their firm.” 

“ I never heard of her or her sister before 
I hired them,” said his father, reddening. 

“ Dad, be square with me. Do you like 
her?” 

“ What?” 

“ Do you like Silvette ? ” 

“ I like her sister.” 

“ And Silvette ? ” 

“ Yes, damn it, I do ! ” 

Jack laughed. 


274 


Nunc Aut Nunquam 

“ So do I,” he said ; “ but she has refused 
99 

me. 

“ She knew enough to do it ; she is a girl of 
sense. Certainly, I like her. She knows well 
enough that she has no right to encourage 
you.” 

“ She knows something else, too.” 

“ What’s that?” 

“ She knows that she doesn’t care for me 
anyway,” said the boy with a quiet simplicity 
that, somehow, left a confused and restless 
resentment in Mr. Rivett’s breast. 

“ Doesn’t care for you ? ” repeated his 
father slowly. “ She’d care for you fast 
enough if she dared.” 

“ Dared ! ” Jack laughed. “ If she had 
cared for me, she’d have told me — and sent 
me about my business all the same; don’t 
worry about that. But she doesn’t care about 
me. ... I think, sweet and generous as she 
is, she does not consider our family as par- 
ticularly desirable for an alliance.” 

“ What ! My employee ! ” 

“ Why, dad, our employing her puts us at 
her mercy. Didn’t you realize that ? ” 

The elder man sat silent, glaring at his son 
through his great convex spectacles. 

275 


Japonette 


“ So that is why this girl wouldn’t listen to 
you ? ” he said. 

“ Her reason was that she, being in your 
employment, occupied a position of trust, and 
that it would be dishonest in her to take ad- 
vantage of it by encouraging your only son.” 

“ Did she say that ? ” 

“ Almost word for word.” 

“When?” 

“ Long ago.” 

“ Oh ! So this has been going on a long 
while?” 

“ I've bothered her a long while*, I’ve con- 
trived to make her miserable. She does her 
best to keep away from me. I don’t know 
what to do,” said the boy miserably. 

“ Well, you’ve done it now, anyway; you’ve 
come to me, and told me against her orders. 
Now, she’ll go — if I tell her.” 

“ I shall tell her ; I couldn’t do this without 
being honest enough to tell her that I’ve done 
it.” 

“ But — you say she’ll go away.” 

“ She certainly will, unless you ask her to 
remain.” 

“I?” 

“Yes; you, dad.” 


276 


Nunc Aut Nunquam 


“ Do you think I’m going to deliberately 
bite my own head off ? ” 

Jack smiled forlornly. “ If you don’t ask 
her to stay, you’ll be biting my head off ; but 
I won’t need a head if she goes, so bite away, 
dad, if you’re going to.” 

Rivett stared at him in stony silence. 

“ Do you know what your sister has done ? ” 

“Yes; Inwood is a corker. I’m terribly 
glad.” 

“ Oh, are you ! ” 

“ Aren’t you ? ” 

“ Confound it ! how do I know whether I’m 
glad or not to see the house emptying itself of 
all your mother and I care for — ” He stopped 
with a dry catch in his throat, then resumed 
more cautiously : 

“ I thought Chrissy’s tale of woe was suffi- 
cient for one morning, but here you come gal- 
loping in with one that beats hers to a batter ! 
How do you suppose I like it? I expected to 
have my children with me for a while. . . . 
Yesterday you were in the cradle. . . . To- 
day you’re up and off and out into the world 
with a girl I never saw before last June! 
Jack! Jack! what the devil’s the matter with 
everything ! ” 


277 


Japonette 


“ Isn’t everything about as it was when you 
were my age, father ? ” 

“ No, it isn’t If anybody had predicted 
these times, he’d have been locked up for a 
lunatic ! What with luxury, and fashions, 
and folderol, and high finance, and cards, and 
cocktails, and cigarettes ” 

“ I don’t mean the details, dad ; but isn’t it 
all about the same — the birth, growth, court- 
ship, parting? Isn’t it?” 

The older man was silent. 

Jack rose and stood by the window watch- 
ing the big clouds drifting across the sky. 

“ Jack,” said his father, “ why did you come 
here to tell me this ? ” 

“ Mother said I had better.” 

“ Your mother!” he exclaimed, horrified. 

“ Yes ; I told her first, of course — even be- 
fore I spoke to Silvette.” 

“ She never said — one — word to me,” mur- 
mured Rivett vacantly. 

“ She promised not to before I would tell 
her.” 

“ Do you mean to say that your mother ap- 
proves?” 

“ She said she would if you did. . . . And 
all I ask of you is to invite Silvette to over- 
278 


Nunc Aut Nunquam 


look what I’ve said and done, and request her 
to remain/’ 

“If she doesn’t care for you,” said Mr. 
Rivett, “ what do you want her to remain 
for?” 

Jack’s eye met his father’s. 

“ So that I can have a chance to win her,” 
he said doggedly, “ with my parents’ full ap- 
proval.” 

Rivett rose, furious. 

“ You stay here until I’ve talked to your 
mother ! ” he barked, and went out slamming 
the door. 

Jack sat down prepared to wait, but it was 
not five minutes before his father came in. 

“ I’ve seen your mother. Clear out of here ! 
That young lady of yours is coming.” 

“ Here?” 

“Yes, here. If you don’t go out, I’ll drop 
you out of the window — old as I am.” 

“ Dad ! You’re a brick ! ” 

“ Well, you’ll get that brick in the neck if 
you don’t hustle ! ” 

Jack laughed and held out his hand ; his 
father took it, tried to speak — only succeeded 
in swearing. The boy went out. When the 
girl entered, Mr. Rivett was standing by the 
279 


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window, wiping his glasses for the second time 
that morning. 

He turned, nodded, placed a chair for Sil- 
vette, but remained standing. 

“ I don’t suppose you’ve any notion why 
I’ve asked you to come in here. Have 
you ? ” 

“ Not the slightest,” she said, smiling. 

“ I suppose you think it’s on business ? ” 

“ Naturally.” 

“ Why naturally.” 

“ Because,” said Silvette, laughing, “ our 
relations are on a business basis.” 

“ Do you consider them entirely so ? ” 

“ I — am obliged to, am I not ? ” 

“ Don’t you like us ? ” he asked bluntly. 

“ What an odd question ! Of course, I do. 
I’m in love with your wife.” 

“ Not with me?” 

She laughed gayly. “ You’ve evidently dis- 
covered that Diana and I like you immensely.” 

“Do you? Really?” 

“ Of course ; you’ve been very charming to 
us. As for Christine, we care a great deal for 
her — very sincerely and deeply, Mr. Rivett.” 

“What about Jack?” asked Mr. Rivett 
casually. 


280 


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A slight tinge of color rose and spread in 
the girl’s pretty cheeks. 

“ Everybody likes Jack,” she said briefly. 

“ Do you? ” 

“ Certainly.” 

“ That’s what I wanted to find out. That’s 
why I asked you to come here.” 

The girl looked at him, startled, incredulous 
of her own hearing. 

“ I don’t understand,” she said. 

“ Then I’ll be plainer. Jack has told me 
that he wishes to marry you.” 

The crimson stained her from throat to 
temple, but she rose with perfect self-posses- 
sion. 

“ I think,” she said quietly, “ that this severs 
our business relations.” 

“ Not unless you wish it.” 

“ I do wish it.” 

“ Why?” 

“ Because I warned Jack that one word of 
this matter to you would mean my leaving 
Adriutha.” 

“ Why?” 

“ Because I am employed here by you, and 
Jack is your son,” she said coldly. 

“ Do you mean to leave us ? ” 

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“ I must.” 

“ You need not.” 

“ You are very kind, but my service is of 
no further value.” 

“ I ask you to remain,” he said slowly. 
“ You have already rendered me service I 
could never pay for. I ask you to remain with 
us — as our guest, if you must; as Jack's be- 
trothed, if you will.” 

She flushed again, brightly, astonished. 

“ But — but I don’t — I am not in love — with 
Jack ! ” she stammered. “ He knows it. I 
have told him so. . . . I like him immensely. 
. . . he is a dear boy — generous, clever, 
charming, considerate. ... I never liked any 
man better. . . . But I don't love him, Mr. 
Rivett” 

“ That’s up to him, isn’t it ? ” asked Rivett 
dryly. “ I can’t make you love my boy ; nei- 
ther can his mother. Mothers can do most 
things. Probably Jack is young enough to 
think she can make you love him ; but I can’t 
help that, Miss Tennant. All I can do is to 
ask you to remain. . . . And to say — that if 
you ever come to care for Jack, my only boy, 
his mother will welcome you as our daugh- 
ter — and so will I.” 


282 


Nunc Aut Nunquam 

Then Silvette did a curious thing. She sat 
down at Mr. Rivett’s desk and bent her head 
over the blotter, and sat so, with her small 
handkerchief against her eyes. 

There was not a sound from her nor from 
Mr. Rivett. 

For a long while she sat there, finally bury- 
ing her face in her handkerchief and both 
hands. 

Mr. Rivett bent over her presently. 

“ Silvette ? ” 

She merely nodded in sign that she had 
heard him. 

He said quietly: “You are in love with 
Jack.” 

She sat motionless. 

“ Your loyalty to honor deceived a very 
gentle heart,” he said ; “ you loved him all the 
time.” 

She made no sign, no movement. 

“ We could ask no better woman for our 
daughter,” he said. “ I was very blind. Jack 
knew, but his mother knew best of all. My 
wife is very wise, Silvette — far wiser than I. 

. . . And I have — I am in debt — to the name 
you bear. I thought by giving you my boy I 
was canceling it. . . . You put me under 

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obligations I am unable to meet — unless you 
can accept my — affection — as collateral. Can 
you, child ? ” 

Her hand moved slightly — moved farther 
across the polished surface of the desk. His 
hand fell over it. 

“ Thank you,” he said. 

They remained silent for a few moments; 
then he gently relinquished her hand and went 
out, leaving the door just ajar. 

When Silvette lifted her head from the 
desk, she knew that Jack had entered. 

Tall and quiet, he stood looking at her ; tall 
and pale, she rose, looked at him steadily, 
came toward him as he moved toward her, 
and laid both hands fearlessly in his. 

“ I didn’t know,” she said. “ I wouldn’t let 
myself even think of you. . . . Do you want 
me, Jack? ” 

Then down he went on one knee, and kissed 
hers, and her hands, and her gown; and, con- 
fused, she drew away, then waited as he rose 
— waited, looking at him as his arm encircled 
her. 

Very gravely they exchanged their first kiss. 

That seemed to break the divine spell, for 
they found their tongues very quickly now, 
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Nunc Aut Nunquam 


and, sitting perched on his father’s desk, side 
by side, feet hanging, and hand in hand, they 
succumbed to the rapture of garrulity, asking 
Love’s same old questions with all the ardor 
of neophytes, and answering as Love has an- 
swered for many a century, and will answer 
for many more — tritely, passionately, and 
with that incurable redundance of which lov- 
ers alone are masters. 


CHAPTER XIII 


CUI MALO 


* ¥ "^ OR the present, it was decided between 
XI Mr. Rivett and his wife that the en- 
gagements of both their children should be 
kept secret. 

Except those immediately concerned, only 
the parents, Diana, and Mr. Dineen knew ; and 
Edgerton, as the nearest male relative of Sil- 
vette, was to be informed. 

It had been left to Diana to inform him. 
Silvette wrote a hasty and cordial note for 
her sister to inclose ; then Diana took her writ- 
ing materials up to the mossy ledge in the 
woods from where Edgerton and she had once 
taken the Path to Yesterday on that sun- 
drenched morning so long — so long ago. 

She had never been there since. Once, 
strolling with Scott Wallace, he had espied 
the ledge, climbed thither, and called to her to 
join him in a new-found wonderland. 

286 


Cui Malo 


But it was not new-found to her, and the 
wonder of it had departed ; and she continued 
on along the river bank below, heedless of his 
enthusiasm and persuasion. 

Now something drew her there. What the 
sentiment was she did not analyze. Perhaps 
it was because the girl knew no spot as inti- 
mate, no fitter place in which to write him of 
her sister’s happiness. 

The place had changed with the season; 
yellowing leaves clothed the trees ; the beds of 
moss had turned to vast reaches of golden 
velvet; naked branches crossed and recrossed 
above in delicate network against the sky. 

Here w r as the silver birch against which she 
had leaned when his arms were round her 
and her lips touched his; there he had lain 
at her feet, stretched across that bed of gilded 
moss — only a boy then, smiling, idle, unawak- 
ened. 

She seated herself exactly as she had sat 
that day, and looked at the empty place where 
once, so long ago, life had begun and ended 
for her — the place of self-sacrifice, the altar 
where her heart had died to appease the Fates 
and mollify the mischief of the far white 
gods. 


287 


Japonette 


Among the yellow leaves a bluejay screamed 
through the stillness; and presently she saw 
him for a moment, a flash of azure and 
silver, high-winging from his invaded sanc- 
tuary. 

Behind him he left a silence, deeper for the 
constant whisper of falling leaves, stranger 
for the far sighing of the unseen stream be- 
low. 

She bent over and searched for the imprint 
of her fingers in the moss where he had kissed 
them unrebuked. Many a sun and moon and 
rain had smoothed out that delicate sign man- 
ual long since. Only upon her heart the im- 
print of his lips remained. 

Then — for the path was easy to her ; alae ! 
too easy — she sent her spirit back along the 
Road to Yesterday; and soon she heard the 
starlings piping and saw the sky all rose and 
gold above the river; and she saw him, and 
heard his voice, talking of starlings and of 
children. 

If a single bright tear fell, the moss buried 
it; and when at last she could see her letter 
paper through glimmering lashes, she inked 
her pen and set her small, sun-tanned hand 
resolutely to the task before her: 

288 


Cui Malo 


“ Jim, dear, Silvette is going to marry Jack 
Rivett. She is supremely happy. I inclose 
her note to you. 

“ Only the families concerned know about 
it yet. It is to be announced in December. 
The date of the wedding has not yet been 
fixed. 

“ I write you this pleasant news because 
you are our nearest relative. 

“ In my last letter I told you that Silvette 
did not love him. I was wrong ; she did love 
him all the while, but she was too decent to 
know it. So how on earth was I to suspect it? 
I didn’t, and she didn’t, and if it hadn’t been 
for Jack kicking over the traces and cantering 
away out of bounds, there probably would 
have been a tragedy in the family ; for Silvette 
and I had your kind and sensible letter, saying 
that the only honorable thing to do was to 
take the first opportunity to withdraw from 
Adriutha, and we had decided you were right. 

“ But man proposes, Jim, and the far gods 
laugh at him — not unkindly, sometimes. My 
little sister is radiantly happy. Jack is a dear; 
so is his sister and parents. 

“ It amuses me to realize that I have come 
to be a purveyor of marital news to you. 
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Japonette 


First, it was Christine and Mr. Inwood ; now 
it’s Silvette and Jack. The nearest I can come 
to rounding out the classical triad of the 
blessed is to inform you, monsieur, that the 
symptoms of Colonel Curmew are becoming 
acute. He tried to take my hand in the 
billiard room — not my bridge hand, either. 

“ He retains my hand too long when he 
helps me into a canoe. The other day I was 
horribly tempted to tip him into the river; he 
said such silly things and popped his eyes and 
went into rhapsodies over my ankles — which 
was slightly infringing les convenances, wasn’t 
it? 

“ But he’s merely a foolish, pompous, well- 
meaning man, slightly silly about all women, 
but with a very kind heart, I fancy. He is 
always doing things for me, always strutting 
around me and shooting his cuffs and curling 
his mustaches. Half the time I don’t under- 
stand his talk — his jokes and apparently witty 
innuendoes, which perhaps are very funny, 
for he laughs at them himself, and I have to 
smile and pretend I am not stupid. 

“No flight has occurred, although there was 
a white frost Saturday night. 

“ The shooting brotherhood are anxious and 
290 


Cui Malo 


gloomy. Some even declare that a flight did 
occur Saturday night ; that the birds remained 
with us over Sunday, when nobody could 
shoot, and left Sunday night, which was bitter 
cold and froze water in the garden. 

“ I don’t know about such things — and don’t 
care very much. It seems to me that these 
big, red-faced men make a ridiculous to-do 
about the migrations of a few small birds. 

“ Scott Wallace is the laziest man — which 
reminds me in time, Jim, to speak about your 
apparent attitude toward Scott. I merely 
wrote you that you would like him if you knew 
him. 

“ To my surprise, you wrote that you, per- 
sonally, had no use for the kind of man I 
described. 

“Was that a snub for me or for Scott? 
I’m sorry I spoke of him. To me he is a nice, 
wholesome, amusing fellow, so friendly to 
everybody that, somehow, your letter — what 
you said in it about a man you never met — 
hurt me. You would like him if you knew 
him. So, with this feminine prerogative, I 
close my lips about Scott Wallace for the pres- 
ent and the future. 

“ I am glad your arm is practically well ; 
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Japonette 


but what makes me entirely contented is what 
you say of your constant and bewildering pro- 
motions. Best of all is what I read between 
the lines — that you really love the business — 
the business of generations of Edgertons ; and 
you, the last of them — but not the last, God 
willing! — are plunging into the game up to 
your neck, interested, optimistic, enthusiastic, 
fitting yourself for that dignified place which 
is yours, Jim, by every right. 

“ Now that it’s over, and the mist blown 
clear of your path forever, I want to confess 
to you how dreadfully I felt to see you here 
in such a capacity. More than that, your light 
talk about the arts, your light and graceful 
accomplishments in them, your tendency to 
drift back toward a career for which you are 
no more fitted than I — all these things troubled 
me deeply, so that, sometimes, I even dreamed 
of them, and finally came to regard your fa- 
cility with actual fear, so jealous was I for 
your real career, so anxious was I that you 
should become your real self. 

“ I suppose you will scarcely believe it, Jim, 
when I tell you that this feeling began from 
the very moment when you offered to go with 
Silvette and me to Adriutha. Somehow, 
292 


Cui Malo 


blindly, I understood even then that it was not 
the thing for you to do; and, remember, I 
knew you scarcely at all. 

“ Yet my instinct resented your going, and 
if I did not actually protest, perhaps you may 
recollect that my attitude was not cordial; 
that you had to ask me many times for my 
vote; that, after all, I never cast it, but simply 
refrained from voting at all. 

“ I suppose this was cowardly in me ; yet, 
Jim, what else could I have done ? I scarcely 
knew you ; I dared not appear ungrateful after 
your kindness to Silvette and to me. 

“ Forgive this self - defense. I merely 
wanted you to know; I only wish you to un- 
derstand that, at heart anyway, I have been, 
from the beginning, loyal to the best interests 
of a friend and a kinsman who was most kind 
to two girls alone in the world. 

“ This is a still, golden, autumn world — 
autumn no longer, alas ! for we are already 
well along in November. But autumn lingers 
in this land of hills and waters, and the frost 
was not severe enough to blacken the late 
roses. If the weather is unseasonable, it is 
also charming, and I love it. Russet and gold 
293 


Japonette 


always did fascinate me — like the hangings 
and tapestries in your studio, with the dusty 
sunlight falling over all. 

“ Eh bien, monsieur, I must conclude my 
monologue. You are a brave man if you have 
read as far as the name you gave me once — 
centuries ago. 

“ Japonette.” 

She closed and sealed her letter, wrote his 
name on the envelope, rested awhile, blue eyes 
seeing nothing; then, touching the envelope 
with her lips, she laid it between the leaves of 
her portfolio. 

Since that day in this very place, Edgerton 
had spoken no more of love to her. She knew 
that he never would again, that what had be- 
gun here on the Path to Yesterday had ended 
where the path ended. Never again would he 
retrace those steps with her ; never again 
travel them alone. For it was a lost road to 
him, a blind trail already overgrown with 
briars. The days made it fainter, the months 
were hiding it, the years would obliterate it 
for him. But for her, alas — she had many a 
pilgrimage yet to make along that briar-grown 
path ; and many a scar, yet unmade, must heal 
294 


Cui Malo 


before that path closed before her pilgrim feet, 
and shut out forever from her eyes the hidden 
shrine it led to, where the sky was rosy above 
the river and the starlings called through the 
golden light of Paradise. 

And now, as she stood up, the subtle scent 
of autumn hung heavy in the air — a faint odor 
of ripening, hinting of decay and death. Sum- 
mer had gone indeed — on earth and in her 
heart. 

Never again would life be the same to her 
after this day, in this place, alone with mem- 
ory ; never again would she be the same. How 
old her heart had become — how old — how old ! 
O amari dies ! O flebiles noctes ! 

She rode that afternoon with Colonel Cur- 
mew, accepting him instead of another be- 
cause she thought his chatter might leave her 
freer to follow her own thoughts. 

But after a while it seemed to her as 
though she could no longer endure them, 
and that the colonel’s inanities were pref- 
erable. 

They were riding down a mountain road, 
the horses picking a cautious way among the 
scattered stones. 


295 


Japonette 


He was paying court to her, as usual, and 
she had been riding on, smiling absently, pre- 
occupied with her own thoughts and mentally 
oblivious to him, when there came a clatter of 
stones from behind, and Scott Wallace gal- 
loped recklessly up at the risk of his horse’s 
neck as well as his own. 

“Halloo!” he said cheerfully; “hope I’m 
not smashing a twosome, colonel.” 

The colonel glanced sourly at him. Diana 
laughed with pleasure: “Not at all, Scott! 
Colonel Curmew and I are old acquaintances, 
and the resources of sentiment were long ago 
exhausted between us. Where are you go- 
ing?” 

“Nowhere; I just felt like a gallop. All 
the chaps are kickin’ over the flight, which 
either isn’t goin’ to materialize or passed over 
Sunday and made boobs of the bunch of us. 
Where are you goin’ ? ” 

“ Nowhere in particular; come with us. My 
nerves needed soothing, so I took the colonel 
along.” 

“ As a tonic or quieter? ” asked Wallace so 
seriously that Diana threw back her pretty 
head and the woodlands were melodious. 

The colonel laughed loudly, too, and began 
296 


Cui Malo 


to hate young Wallace with a hatred that 
passes all understanding. 

Wallace turned to her. “ What’s wrong 
with your nerves? I supposed you hadn’t 
any.” 

“ I didn’t know it either, Scott. Probably 
I’ve played with cards and cigarettes too hard. 
For all the sunshine, to-day has been a gray 
one for me. . . . Shall we gallop ? ” 

She launched her horse into a trot, a canter, 
then into a dead run. Behind her tore the two 
men through the afternoon sunlight, on, on, 
until their winded mounts topped the home- 
ward crest of the hill and they looked down 
on the meadows of Adriutha. 

They wended their way down the moun- 
tain in silence — Diana, grave and apparently 
tired; Wallace smiling slightly, and glancing 
at her from moment to moment ; Colonel Cur- 
mew pop-eyed, expressionless, curling his 
mustache with gloved fingers. 

He was furious with Diana, with Wallace, 
with himself. Yet even he could not see how 
he might have resented the young man’s in- 
trusion otherwise than by the lack of cordial- 
ity which he had certainly manifested. Be- 
sides, Diana had invited him to remain with 
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Japonette 


them. Of what low tricks women are capable ! 
Because she knew well enough that he had de- 
sired and sought a tete-a-tete. 

Curling his mustache tighter, he rode on, a 
good figure in the saddle always — ruminating, 
considering, angry because of the interrup- 
tion. 

For Colonel Follis Curmew had for days, 
now, been carefully preparing the way for 
something he meant to say to Diana. He was 
a cautious man with women ; he reconnoitered 
by degrees, inch by inch, carefully watching 
effect. Hint, innuendo, double meanings, 
sly feelers, veiled intent, was the strategy he 
usually employed at first, skirmishing as close 
to the dead line as he dared ; furtive, alert, 
ready always for a brilliant and resistless 
climax at the psychological moment. 

A few minutes ago he had believed that the 
psychological moment was approaching. He 
had said one or two things so cleverly that 
not the least resentment had altered her smile ; 
but how was he to know that, if she had 
heard him at all, she had not in the least un- 
derstood him ? It takes more than one to play 
a game of that kind. The trouble was that 
her smiling inattention had deceived him — had 
298 


Cui Malo 


always deceived him. He was entirely per- 
suaded that she had drifted into the game long 
ago. 

Surely, surely the psychological moment 
had been close at hand when that big fool of 
a boy had come clattering downhill and 
smashed their approaching understanding into 
smithereens for the moment. The colonel 
silently damned him as he rode. It took time 
and patience to gather up and piece together 
the fragments and smithereens; it took skdl 
and watchfulness to choose another such pro- 
pitious day and hour — to select the scenery 
and the moment for what he meant to say to 
this young girl. 

As he dismounted her at the foot of the ter- 
race he pressed her arm significantly, and said 
under his breath : 

“ Can we get away for a moment together 
this evening? ” 

Wallace was close by, and the colonel spoke 
so low and pinched so discreetly that she nei- 
ther understood nor noticed his amenities, so 
she merely nodded smilingly, thanked him for 
his escort, and ran up the steps beside Wal- 
lace. 

“ Fll be in the billiard room later, if that 

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Japonette 


interests you,” she called back over her shoul- 
der to Wallace as she ascended the stairs. 

“ It certainly does ! ” he replied promptly, 
and went away to change. 

Diana continued on to her own room, dis- 
turbing Jack and Silvette on the stairs, and 
gaily jeering at them as she banged the door. 

A curious reaction had set in from the sad- 
ness of the morning — a feverish desire to es- 
cape from herself, from the misery that lay 
always heavy in her breast, the relentless 
hours that weighted her heart so that its dull 
beating had become a burden. 

The bath refreshed her ; so did the tea. She 
put on her little Japanese gown and her straw 
sandals, and curled up by the window, sipping 
her tea and watching the declining sun. 

Dusk came swiftly, and with it Silvette who 
bent over and kissed her, and tasted the tea, 
and wandered about the rooms gossiping, too 
full of the joy of living to. endure silence in 
herself or in anybody else. 

Pangs of swift remorse and self-reproach 
stabbed her at intervals when she thought of 
her own happiness and remembered Diana’s 
late unhappy affair. 

How far Diana had cured herself, she did 
300 


Cui Malo 


not know, but she knew that her sister was 
still more or less unhappy about Edgerton. 

“ Did you send him my note ? ” she in- 
quired. 

“Yes; I wrote him, and inclosed it.” 

“ He’s a dear boy. . . . How well he must 
be doing ! He ought to go down on his knees 
and thank you every day of his life for what 
he is turning out to be.” 

“ He would have turned out all right any- 
way, sooner or later.” 

“ Well, he’s a horrid pig if he isn’t grate- 
ful to you. ... I don’t suppose he has the 
slightest idea what his regeneration cost 
you.” 

“ Don’t talk that way, Silvie.” 

“ What way ? I’m merely saying ” 

“ Don’t say it, dear. ... If it cost me any- 
thing, he is never going to know it.” 

Silvette looked at her wistfully. “If I 
could only see you as happy as I am, Di. . . . 
Sometimes I can scarcely bear to be as happy 
as I am, and remember that you are not shar- 
ing it.” 

“True,” said Diana, smiling; “Jack can’t 
marry us both, so we can’t share your happi- 
ness, dear.” 


301 


Japonette 


Silvette came and sat on the arm of the 
chair, drawing one arm about Diana’s neck. 

“ Do you still care for him very much ? ” 
she asked sorrowfully. 

“ Very much.” 

“ Do you think it will last ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ What are you going to do ? ” 

“ Nothing.” 

“ Isn’t there something to do ? ” 

“ Nothing.” 

“ Perhaps, all this time he really cares for 
you.” 

“ There is not the slightest possibility. I 
had my chance ; he cared for me — at that mo- 
ment — when he told me so. . . . Those men 
out there ” — she made a vague gesture toward 
the unseen hills — “ are no more deadly cool 
when they shoot than was I when I deliberate- 
ly killed in him whatever love he may have 
had for me. ... I slew it, I tell you. There 
is no resurrection for dead things.” 

Silvette sighed heavily, and laid her smooth 
cheek against her sister’s hair. 

“ Still,” she murmured half to herself, 
“ there are miracles.” 

“ There were” 


302 


Cui Malo 


“ There may be others yet.” 

“ No ; I wounded his pride.” 

“ You aroused it.” 

“ By wounding it, and at the expense of 
what fell dead beside it. Love died that day, 
little sister, and for that death there is no re- 
incarnation.” 

Again the feverish desire for escape came 
over her, seeming to burn through every vein, 
and she sprang to her feet and rang for the 
maid. 

“ I’m likely to do almost anything to-night,” 
she said. “ Shall I make it a double event 
when you’re ready ? ” 

“ A double — what ? ” 

“ Double event — double wedding ? I can 
easily do so. Is it a good way to drown your 
griefs, Silvie? Because the prospect of being 
alone after you and Jack marry actually ter- 
rifies me.” 

“You little goose, you’ll live with us!” 

“ I see myself doing it ! — the superfluous 
spinster to be reckoned with, counted in 
at dinners, mollified by kindness, secretly 
feared for her acidulated tongue, to be em- 
ployed later in either bribing or disciplining 
the children.” 


303 


Japonette 


“ Di ! ” 

“ What?” 

“ If — i n the— the ” 

“ Course of human events ” 

“ Jack and I have children,” continued Sil- 
vette, flushing, “ we'll also have nurses to look 
out for the grubby little things.” 

“ Grubby! You don't know what you’re 
saying. You'll be the most adoring — and 
adorable mother ” 

“ Well, please don’t talk about it. ... I 
don’t care for children now. ... I don’t know 
how I’ll feel later.” 

Diana stood in the middle of the room — 
the smile fading from her face, her small 
hands clenching. 

“ I’ve learned to like children,” she said. 
“ I’ve learned to love them, somehow — even 
babies. ... I want one of my own,” she 
added fiercely. “ I wish for one very much ; 
and if I can’t have one — and it’s impossible, 
of course — I — I’ll marry some man and have 
one ! ” 

“ Good heavens ! ” exclaimed Silvette, hor- 
rified, “ what are you talking about ? I’ll let 
you have one of mine ! ” 

“ I don’t want yours ! How do you know 
304 


Cui Malo 


you'll have any? How do you know you’ll 
have more than one ? ” 

Her eyebrows were bent inward, her lips 
compressed ; she turned her head and stared 
out at the stars — from where, they say, all 
babies come, and where they all return at 
last. 

“You know,” she said calmly, “that I 
wouldn’t really do such a thing — even to have 
what I care for so much. . . . And yet — if a 
woman is tired, hopeless, alone, isn’t marry- 
ing some man a help to her ? Can’t she stand 
the passing years better? Doesn’t it give her 
some respite from the eternal pain — here ” — 
she laid a slim hand on her breast — “ doesn’t 
it give her something to live for, especially if 
children should come? I don’t know, Silvie; 
I ask you because I’m tired and confused with 
the pain of it.” 

“My darling!” 

She dropped her head on Silvette’s shoulder 
for a moment; then, as the maid knocked, 
lifted it calmly and bade her come in. 

That night at dinner she was very gay — a 
charming, sparkling, bewildering creature. 
Through and through Colonel Curmew shot 
305 


Japonette 

intermittent pangs of jealousy and doubt, mer- 
cifully assuaged by hope ; through and through 
Scott Wallace her blue eyes seemed to pene- 
trate, exposing to her laughing gaze his youth- 
ful and very susceptible heart. 

“ Certainly I’m bowled over,” he admitted 
cheerfully to himself. “ She is the cunnin’est 
thing that ever missed a pheasant; but she’s 
found me, all right, with both barrels, and the 
sky’s full of feathers, and I’m on the sod, 
kickin’.” 

He managed to tell her so that evening, in 
language sportsmanlike and picturesque, be- 
fore they cut for partners at auction. She 
was standing on the stairs, two steps 
up ; he below her, with his handsome face 
lifted. 

“ All you’ve got to do is to send your dogs 
forward, and retrieve me, Diana. I’m grassed 
in the open in plain sight.” 

“ Suppose I should take you up, Scott ? ” 

“ Is it a go? ” 

She smiled down at him. 

“ Take care, young man. I’m approaching 
spinsterhood at a terrifying speed. How do 
you know that I may not clutch wildly at 
you?” 


306 


Cui Malo 


“ For Heaven’s sake, clutch ! ” he urged 
her. 

“ How ? Shall I roll up my eyes and whis- 
per, ‘ Oh, Scott ! ’ — or shall I take a flying 
leap at you from here, and rope you before 
you can get away? Instruct me, please, be- 
cause I really don’t know as much about such 
customs as perhaps you think I do.” 

“ Take the flyer, Diana ; I’ll catch you. Are 
you ready ? Come on ; be a sport ! ” 

“ I can’t be a sport, Scott. I try ; I make a 
brave effort to be cigaretteful and naughty, 
but — I’m ashamed to say it isn’t in me. Now 
you’ll run, I suppose.” 

“ After you — yes. . . . Diana, I do love 
you. I haven’t said it right, that’s all. Will 
you marry me and make somethin’ out of me 
besides a loafin’ lout in puttees ? ” 

“ Oh, Scott, you’re so beautiful in puttees ! 
I wouldn’t make anything else out of you if 
I could; you must be perfectly gorgeous in 
pink.” 

“ Come down to the next hunt ball and see. 
They’re a fine bunch at Meadowbrook. You’ll 
like ’em ; maybe you’ll learn to like me.” 

“ I do now, you scatter-brain ! I adore you, 
Scott ; but, you know, love is a different game.” 
307 


Japonette 


“ That’ll come all right,” he protested. 
“ When you’re the missus, and you see me 
come a cropper over five bars, you’ll suddenly 
wake up to find you love hubby. And I won’t 
be hurt, but you’ll think I am, and you’ll pull 
up and scramble down and look me over, and 
cover my pale and beautiful face with kisses 
and — I’ll play foxy and let you,” he ended 
with pleased satisfaction. 

The smile on her face had suddenly become 
fixed; for what he was saying had conjured 
up a vision of the polo field, and a young fel- 
low in white picking himself up from the 
trampled sod. 

Wallace, looking around to see that the hall 
was empty, sprang up the two steps and took 
her hand in his. 

“ Diana, I do love you dearly,” he said. 
“ Will you take me on for a trial gallop ? ” 

“ Do you mean an engagement ? ” she said, 
looking him over. 

“Yes, I do; will you?” 

“ What kind of an engagement? ” 

“ The regular — with a sparkler on the side. 
Will you, Di?” 

“ No, you very slangy young man, I won’t.” 

“ Well, then — then — what kind of an en- 
308 


Cui Malo 


gagement do you suggest ? ” he asked cheer- 
fully. “Just the circingle and halter kind?” 

“What kind is that, Scott?” 

“ Oh, an understanding that you’re not bitted 
and bridled yet.” 

“ You mean that the engagement lasts dur- 
ing my pleasure ? ” 

“ Yes, that’s it.” 

“ And ends in marriage — or a very, very 
kind note ? ” she asked, laughing. 

“ Sure thing ! Am I on ? ” 

She considered him, smilingly. 

“If you like,” she said. 

“ Oh, I do like ! It’s awf’lly good of you, 
Diana. . . . Would you be gracious enough to 
wear a sparkler ? ” 

“ Not yet, Scott.” 

“ Oh, that’s all right — whenever you say.” 
He looked up at her, blushing. “ Do you mind 
if I kiss you? ” 

She looked at him for a second, then im- 
pulsively bent forward and kissed him 
squarely. 

“ You nice boy,” she said gently ; “ you nice, 
nice boy. I wish the world were fuller of 
your sort. ... I don’t love you, Scott. . . . 
I don’t suppose I shall. . . . But if you knew 
309 


Japonette 


what I feel for you, I believe you wouldn’t 
exchange it for any love I could ever give you. 
. . . Shall we go into the billiard room ? I’m 
playing at Colonel Curmew’s table, and he’s 
probably perfectly furious at being kept wait- 
mg. 

She gave his hand a friendly pressure as 
he released it, laughed, blushed, and turned 
away toward the billiard room, where the 
clamor was already audible. 

They parted at the door, where she met her 
sister in conversation with Mr. Rivett. 

“ Diana,” she said, “ Mr. Rivett and I are 
going to town on the early train. You know 
he goes every week, and I’ve simply got to do 
some shopping. Will you come with us ? ” 

Diana’s heart gave a bound. To her, New 
York had become merely the abiding place of 
Edgerton, and every mention of it started her 
pulses. 

“ Oh, do come, Di,” urged her sister. “ If 
you’ll come, we’ll have Jim to dinner at the 
Plaza. All the theaters are open, too, and we 
can have a jolly time.” 

“ How on earth is Jack going to bear it? ” 
asked Diana, laughing. i 

“Bear it? Did you suppose Jack wasn’t 
310 


Cui Malo 


coming ? ” asked Silvette so naively that the 
corners of Mr. Rivett’s eyes cracked into 
wrinkles. 

“ All right, I’ll come,” said Diana, with 
never a thought for Scott Wallace ; but, think- 
ing of Edgerton, she had meant to go from 
the first. 

As Silvette, on her future father-in-law’s 
arm, walked on toward the drawing-room, 
Colonel Curmew appeared from the billiard 
room. 

“ Oh,” said Diana, “ I am so sorry to have 
kept you waiting. I was talking to my sister 
about going to town to-morrow.” 

“ I want to see you before you go,” said 
Curmew in a low voice. “ It can’t be done 
now — they’re waiting for us, and Mrs. 
Wemyss is developing a temper. When can 
I see you ? ” 

“ Why, I don’t know,” she said, smiling. 
“ What have you to say to me that cannot be 
said now ? ” 

The colonel’s eyes popped, and he leered at 
her, not doubting her coquetry. 

“ On the terrace after cards,” he said, curl- 
'ing his mustache. “ Is that understood ? ” 

“ Indeed, it is not, Colonel Curmew ! ” she 
311 


Japonette 


said, amused. “ I shall retire early, because 
I have an early train to catch.” 

The colonel’s face darkened. There were 
limits to coquetry. 

“ When did you decide to go ? ” 

“ A few minutes ago.” 

“ You knew I had something to say to 
you ? ” 

“ I knew nothing of the sort. And what has 
it to do with my going to town, anyway ? ” 

The colonel had only a few moments to de- 
cide. 

“ How long will you be in town ? ” 

“ I don’t know.” 

“ Where will you be ? ” 

He wearied her, and to be rid of him she 
thoughtlessly gave him the address at the 
Plaza. 

“ I’ll be in town for a day or two,” he said, 
leering at her once more. 

If she heard, she paid no heed, for she was 
already entering the billiard room with a gay 
gesture and a smile for Wallace, who waved 
his hand in reply, and looked volumes at her 
across the hubbub. 


CHAPTER XIV 

DESUNT CETERA 

{OfILVETTE and Diana, in one of Mr. 

Rivett’s town limousines, had shopped 
to their hearts’ satisfaction, inspected fash- 
ions for the coming winter in hats and furs 
and gowns and various intimate affairs of 
flimsier fabric, had whirled away down town 
to lunch with Mr. Rivett and Mr. Dineen at 
the Iron and Steel Club, then whirled up town 
again to resume the delicious exploration of 
those glittering Fifth Avenue shops which line 
that thoroughfare from Madison Square to 
the gilded battle horse and its rider in two 
almost unbroken ranks. 

In that magic land, where trousseaux are 
assembled and garnered by pretty brides to be, 
Silvette lingered, fascinated ; but her rapid, 
intelligent survey was only preliminary as yet. 
She and Diana were merely en vidette ; official 
inspection and an advance in force would fol- 
low later. 


313 


Japonette 


But, oh, the jewels and the furs and the 
lovely laces and the heavenly hats ! 

Every shop was now in full swing toward 
the culminating, scintillating transformation of 
Christmas ; the avenue was crowded with 
flashing automobiles and carriages, the flor- 
ists’ windows were beautiful, the sidewalks 
crowded. 

Men sold violets everywhere at street cor- 
ners or offered enormous, orange-tinted chrys- 
anthemums nodding on long stems; giant po- 
licemen on foot kept busy ward at every cross- 
ing; superb mounted police calmly stemmed 
the twin torrents and, with lifted hand, quieted 
the maelstrom. Far to the south, in snowy 
magnificence against the sky, the huge marble 
tower brooded under its golden lantern above 
the city’s roar; northward the naked trees of 
the park turned ruddy and golden in the eye 
of the level sun. 

And all of it the two young girls beheld, 
and part of it they were — sometimes afoot in 
the throng, sometimes in their limousine, 
looking out with enchanted eyes upon all this 
magic — magic only, alas ! to the unspoiled eyes 
of youth. 

From time to time Silvette had stopped at 

3H 


Desunt C cetera 


any convenient place to telephone Edgerton, 
calling him up at his various points of possible 
contact. She had telegraphed him the morn- 
ing that they left Adriutha, which was the 
day before, but, as time passed, it became evi- 
dent that he had not yet received the tele- 
gram. 

Some days ago he had gone to Pittsburg at 
Mr. Dineen’s suggestion. On his way back 
he was to stop at Philadelphia and Jersey City. 

Rivett said at luncheon that he’d probably 
return to his rooms before dining, and find 
their telegram in time to join them at the 
Plaza for dinner. 

But he didn’t come, nor did any word ar- 
rive from him ; and Silvette and Jack went off 
to the New Theater to see “ The Thunder- 
bolt ” matchlessly staged and acted in a match- 
less theater ; and Rivett offered to take Diana 
anywhere. 

But the girl was sick at heart under her 
smiling, feverish gayety, and the brilliant 
darkness of the streets seemed to mock her 
as she looked out into them. 

Also, there was a chance that Edgerton 
might arrive late and telephone to somebody 
— perhaps even to her. 

315 


Japonette 


It was merely a chance, but her chances 
were few these days, and she durst not pass 
one by, no matter how unlikely it looked. 

So she thanked Mr. Rivett, and preferred 
her room in the pretty suite to which he had 
invited Silvette and herself ; and there she sat 
in her silken dinner gown, sunk into the vel- 
vety depths of a chair, watching the city lights 
from the window, waiting, listening — always 
listening with a hope that died and lived with 
her unquiet breathing; fading, flowering, wax- 
ing, waning, dead and alive between two heart- 
beats — the hope forever new — the only living 
thing which cannot die while the sad world 
endures. 

Below her, far below, the lights of motors 
ran swiftly like passing meteors ; the lights of 
carriages and hansoms streamed to and fro, 
yellower and slower ; the lighted windows of 
street cars glided across her line of vision in 
endless, level repetition. 

To the west the gemmed fagade of the New 
Theater sparkled above the trees ; northward 
the lighted streets spread away like linked jew- 
els under the winter stars. 

Into the high silence where she lay and 
looked out into the night, only a faint rumor 
316 


Desunt C cetera, 


of the city mounted from below; a tongue of 
flame rustled on the hearth ; the clock ticked. 

Suddenly, silence was shattered in her ears ; 
she sprang to her feet, one hand against her 
heart, her stunned senses deafened by the 
clamor of the telephone. 

The next instant she was at the receiver — 
the receiver pressed convulsively to her ear. 

“Yes,” she said faintly. 

“ Yes; this is Miss Tennant.” 

“Yes — Diana Tennant. Who is it?” 

“Yes; I will hold the wire.” 

She rested against the shelf, relaxing from 
the tension; then, rigid, electrified: 

“Yes! Is that you, Jim?” 

“ Of course ! ” he replied. “ Are you at the 
Plaza ? ” 

“Yes — all alone. Oh, Jim! I am so glad 
to hear your voice ! ” 

“ It’s bully of you to say it. I’m delighted 
to hear yours. I have just come in and found 
Silvette’s telegram on my desk. Shall I come 
around ? ” 

“Will you?” 


317 


Japonette 


She could hear him laughing, then : 

“ Watch me/’ he said, “ if the dust doesn’t 
obscure the spectacle, I’ll be with you in five 
minutes. Is that right, Diana ? ” 

“ It is perfectly right.” 

As though dazed she hung up the receiver 
in its nickel wishbone, and began walking 
aimlessly up and down the room trying to col- 
lect her wits and calm her senses. Outwardly 
composed, inwardly facing chaos, she threw 
open the window and turned her face to the 
coolness of the winter stars. 

Then behind her the telephone sounded 
again. It was only the announcement of his 
arrival, and she closed the door of her room 
and went into the pretty parlor, where a 
maid was already turning on the electric 
lights. 

His ring sounded; the maid admitted him 
to the outer hall, took his hat and coat, and 
ushered him in. Diana rose to receive him 
with smiling composure as the maid retired to 
the bedroom. 

“ This is very prompt of you, Jim — and 
promptness is the most subtle of flatteries. 
. . . How thin and white you look ! . . . Are 
you perfectly well ? ” 

318 


Desunt Ccetera 


“ Perfectly. I need not ask that question 
of you, Rose of the Berkshires! ” 

“ Do I really look well ? ” 

“ Flawless and dewy fresh — a trifle slim, 
perhaps. Don’t they keep you in pheasants?” 

“ They do, kind sir. It’s fashion, not slen- 
derness, you behold. Never mind how it’s ac- 
complished. But, Jim, you don’t look well. 
Are they working you to death ? ” 

“ Not so you’d notice my decease,” he said 
laughingly. “ I’m in the game, up to the neck, 
and swimming strongly. It’s a fine game, Di- 
ana. No doubt generations of Edgertons on 
high look down on me and sing in unison the 
Anvil Chorus. It’s a great game — this iron 
one. The iron is in me ; I’m lanced through 
and through — it’s flowing in my blood ; it’s in 
my bones. Iron ! iron ! There is nothing to 
compare with it in all the world, Diana.” 

“ Let me see your arm, Jim.” 

4 ‘ Shall I take off my coat and ” 

“ No; I’ll just feel it — very gently.” 

“ It’s mended. Squeeze all you please.” 

“ Was it here?” 

“ Higher.” 

“ Here?” 

“ Lower.” 


319 


Japonette 


“ Here T” 

“ Higher.” 

“ Jim, I believe you’re just letting me fondle 
your old arm and waste oceans of sympathy 
on it ! ” 

They laughed ; he showed her where the 
fracture had occurred. She, gravely curious, 
explored his sleeve with timid fingers. 

“ Doesn’t hurt at all, Jim?” 

“ Damp weather,” he said briefly. “ How 
long do you remain in town, Diana ? ” 

“ Only over to-morrow.” 

“ Good Lord ! Is that all ? ” 

“ We’ve been here two days.” 

■“ And I was in Pittsburg, dammit ! ** 

“ You certainly were, my friend ; but, could 
I help that? I did my best. We wired you, 
and we have telephoned you steadily every 
minute since we’ve been here. . . . Jim, do 
you know, in the excitement we’ve quite for- 
gotten to sit down.” 

They laughed again; he placed a chair for 
her, but she chose the lounge, and made a 
place for him beside her. Within the half 
hour a physical transformation had changed 
her to a flushed and radiant young girl, shy 
and audacious by turns, brilliant of eye and 
320 


Desunt Cetera 


lip, and charmingly alert to his every word 
and smile. From her shoulders the robe of 
care seemed to have fallen, shriveling, as it 
fell, in the soft fire of her youth and spring- 
tide, leaving visible only her fresh, unstained, 
and winsome beauty. 

She told him all that had occurred at Adriu- 
tha — all except what had happened between 
herself and young Wallace; and for the time 
she really forgot that such a man existed. 

Then she asked eager questions ; and he laid 
open the first pages of his new life before her 
proud, happy, sympathetic eyes, tracing it 
paragraph by paragraph for her since he had 
entered into man’s estate, and had put away 
childish things. 

The clock ticked ; the tongue of flame flick- 
ered low among its ashes. They talked on, 
heeding nothing except each other. 

“ I thought you and Silvette were to use the 
apartment when you come to town. Your 
room is ready ; but here you are in white mar- 
ble and palatial grandeur overlooking the 
park. Explain those phenomena, pretty 
maid ! ” 

“ We’re guests of Mr. Rivett, Jim. Other- 
wise, no palatial grandeur for us. We wanted 
321 


Japonette 


to go to the studio apartment ; I was perfectly 
crazy to go. But we saw it would hurt Mr. 
Rivett’s feelings, and that he had set his kind 
old heart on entertaining us. . . . Oh, Jim, I 
don’t want to seem ungrateful, but if older 
people only knew that the less they entertain 
the young, the better they are beloved ! ” 

“ That’s a rather sad truth, but it’s the 
truth,” he said. “ Rivett handed me one black 
eye, too, bless his heart. I had so counted on 
your being in the apartment. . . . Well, you’ll 
come sometime — ” He hesitated, looked at 
her, troubled. 

“ When is Silvette to be married ? ” 

“ They think in the spring ; they haven’t set- 
tled it yet.” 

“ Then you and she will be in the apartment 
this winter ? ” 

“If you want us,” she said almost shyly. 

“ Want you ! It will be paradise ! I’ll make 
my salary go as far as it will.” 

“ Indeed, you wont! Silvette and I chip 
in pro rata, or we refuse your marble halls ! ” 
“ I’m afraid I’ll have to agree, Japonette. 
My poverty, not my will, consents ! ” 

After a moment she said : “ It is a long 
while since you have called me that.” 

3 22 


Desunt C cetera 


“ What?” 

“ Japonette. I like it. There’s a sort of an 
irresponsible frou-frou to the name which 
suits me. That’s all I am, Jim,” she added 
with a laugh — “ just a swish of scented 
skirts.” 

He glanced up at her, half smiling. 

“ I know what you are,” he said. 

“ Do you ? / don’t. Reveal me to myself, 

0 Cagliostro ! ” 

“ Not now.” 

“ Why?” 

“ Not now,” he repeated. 

‘‘When?” she insisted. 

“ Some particularly sunny day in June, per- 
haps.” 

“June! Listen to this man! The very 
nearest June is seven months off ! ” 

“ And I don’t believe it will be next June, 
either,” he said with a grin. 

“ Jim ! ” 

“ Yes?” 

“ You’re a plain masculine brute! You say 
you know what I am. If you do, tell me now! 

1 maintain that I’m only a silken rustle and a 
hint of scent. Am I a louder episode than 
that, Jim? ” 


323 


Japonette 


“ The vault of heaven rings with you ! ” he 
assured her, laughing. 

“ Harmoniously ? ” 

“ Entrancingly.” 

“ Well, that’s better/’ she nodded dubiously. 
“ Evidently I’m not the kind of a noise that 
gets arrested. Jim, when the others come in, 
shall we have supper ? ” 

“ Tons of it, dear lady. They’ll have to 
push me out of this hotel before I consent to 

go-" 

“ Do you mean it ? ” 

“ Militantly — truculently ! ” 

“ Are you glad to see me?” 

He glanced at her with an odd expression, 
then turned aside to set his cigarette afire. 
“Yes, I’m glad,” he said. 

She took one of his cigarettes, lighted it, 
savored it daintily, then leaned back watching 
him. Their eyes encountered, and they 
smiled. 

“ Where are the others, Diana ? ” 

“ Jack and Silvette are at the New Theater. 
Mr. Rivett and Mr. Dineen are sitting some- 
where, cheek by jowl, looking wealthy.” 

“ How does one look wealthy ? ” 

“ You always do, Jim.” 

324 


Desunt C cetera 


“ Thank fortune for that. It ought to land 
me somewhere on the grandstand.” 

“ Haven’t you noticed,” she said, “ that 
some people always look wealthy? I don’t 
know exactly what it is about them; it has 
nothing to do with breeding, or clothes, or 
careful grooming.” 

“ Neither has wealth,” he smiled. 

“ That’s trite ; you’re becoming too prosper- 
ous to remain clever. But, oh, Jim! isn’t it 
fine ! ” she exclaimed impulsively. 

“ What is fine?” 

“ Why, your success, of course ! Your 
splendid interest in the business — your fitting 
yourself for a position of honor among your 
peers ! It is fine ! fine ! And it is the happiest 
thing that has ever happened in my life ! ” 

He looked at her. 

“ You dear girl,” he said quietly. 

“ I ? It was none of my doing. You’re mis- 
taken if you think so. Once you said some- 
thing of that sort in a letter to me ; but it isn’t 
true, Jim. You have found yourself; the 
credit is yours alone.” 

“ I give credit to the far white gods. . . . 
In that Olympian Pantheon one is known as 
Diana.” 


325 


Japonette 


“ She of the Ephesians — yes. She was 
great, wasn’t she? Did you ever hear of the 
fly who said, ‘ I lie on my back in space, bal- 
ancing the world on my six legs ’ ? The fly 
was quite right ; there’s no top or bottom point 
to this sphere — or to your logic, Jim.” 

He smiled quietly. 

“ Did you ever hear of that Chinese goddess 
of the lotus, Kwan-Yin, who, from her blos- 
som throne in the Happy Isles, rescues lost 
souls?” 

“ With how many incarnations are you go- 
ing to endow me, Jim?” 

“ Do you think I am endowing you with 
anything you do not already possess ? ” 

“ What do I possess ? ” she laughed ; “ blue 
eyes and a fair skin and a heart as mercenary 
as a Persian pussy’s. Warmed in the sun- 
shine of life, I radiate purrs; but I’m a slit- 
eyed opportunist in storm and stress.” 

After a moment he said : 

“ What are your plans when Silvette mar- 
ries?” 

“ I suppose I’ll marry somebody,” she said, 
thinking of Wallace for the first time. “ Old 
age alone doesn’t attract me ; in fact, I’ve been 
hedging already,” she added. 

326 


Desunt C cetera 


“ Hedging? ” 

“ Practically ; Pve told a man I’d marry 
him if it suited me to do so some day; but, 
meanwhile, he must consider himself pad- 
locked. Isn’t that a nice, thrifty, feminine 
contract ? ” 

“ Are you serious ? ” 

“ Entirely.” 

“ Who is he?” 

She glanced at him uncertainly. 

“ I think you’ve heard me speak of him, 
Jim.” 

“ Wallace?” 

“ That is the youth.” 

“ Are you in love with him ? ” 

“ Oh, more than that, Jim. I like him.” 

“ Enough to marry him ? ” 

“ Not at present. . . . But you never can 
tell. I await the event. I haven’t anything 
else to do.” 

He nodded, smiling. 

“ I rather imagined him to be the sort of 
man you’d come to care for. . . . I’ve heard 
one or two men speak of him recently.” 

“ You mean that you made inquiries ? ” 

A tint of red touched the city pallor of his 
skin. 


3 2 7 


Japonette 


“ Yes, I took that liberty.” 

“ It was a friendly one. The reports were 
excellent, of course.” 

“ Excellent. He must be a good deal of a 
man.” 

Her eyes were fixed on him, expressionless, 
considering. The slightest smile edged her 
lips. 

“ He is young — and nice. ... I don’t know 
how much of a man he may become. ... I 
know nothing about him, and haven’t studied 
him very minutely yet.” 

“ You will — before you marry him.” 

“ I may not. ... A girl often misuses a 
microscope. I think I have, frequently. Do 
you remember King Gama’s song? — 

“‘And interested motives 
I’m delighted to detect !’ 

“No, Jim; my snooping days are about 
over. Dissection wearies ; the clinic is a bore. 
I’m beginning to be content with the surface of 
things ; I’m tending toward impressionism and 
the elimination of detail — toward the blessed 
serenity of stupidity. There is rest, there.” 

“ Rest,” he repeated, smiling. “ Of what 
are you already tired ? ” 

328 


Desunt C cetera 


“ I am tired of intelligence. It’s too exact- 
ing. It forms a liaison with conscience, and 
affronts inclination. I’m tired of rule and pre- 
cept with which an occult and inborn tyr- 
anny shackles me. I’m tired of more than 
that — but isn’t that sufficient to fatigue a 
girl ? ” 

“ Heavy chains,” he said, locking at the fig- 
ures on the carpet, tracing them with an in- 
curious eye. 

“ So I think I’ll file away a few links.” 

“ You can’t.” 

He rose, walked to the window, drew the 
curtain, and looked out at the November stars. 
Limpid, inexorable, the countless eyes of the 
night met his. Whatever message they held 
for him he seemed to understand it, for, pres- 
ently he came quietly back to her. 

“Yes,” he said, “it’s a good game, after 
all. The main thing is to get into it and stay 
there — in rnedeas res — squarely.” He looked 
up, smiling. “ Your superb interference put 
me there. Why do you deny it ? ” 

“ Does it please you that I should not deny 
it?” 

“Yes, Diana.” 

“ Then I affirm and deny nothing — which 
329 


Japonette 


makes me sufficient of a nonentity to suit you, 
I hope.” 

“ I am suited.” 

A moment later the bell rang, and Silvette 
and Jack, followed by Mr. Rivett, came laugh- 
ing through the hall and into the little parlor. 

“ Jim ! At last ! ” cried Silvette, giving him 
both hands. 

“ How are you, cousin ! How are you, Mr. 
Rivett! Hello, Jack!” he said as they sur- 
rounded him with lively greetings. 

“How goes it?” inquired Mr. Rivett dryly. 

“ First rate.” 

“ Did you see McMillan in Pittsburgh ? ” 

“ By jove, I did ! He was tremendously in- 
teresting — and exceedingly cordial to me.” 

Mr. Rivett nodded. He might have said 
that he kept McMillan in his vest pocket, but 
he onR stared at Edgerton through his big, 
round glasses. 

They all had supper together, later; Jack 
and Silvette bubbled enthusiasm over the play 
and the splendid cast; Dineen came in and 
talked business to Rivett in casual undertones ; 
Diana and Edgerton were quieter, even in- 
clined to silence. 

Meanwhile Jack was consulting Silvette 
330 


Desunt Cetera 


about theater plans for the following evening, 
and Edgerton said that he would return from 
business in time to join them. 

“You’ll be in Jersey, won’t you?” asked 
Rivett. 

“ Yes.” 

“ Well, try to get back in time to dress and 
join us at dinner.” 

“ I don’t believe I can do that.” 

Rivett looked at him. “ Try,” he said 
briefly. 

But Edgerton said aside to Diana: 

“ I can’t get back to the studio before eight. 
... By the way, you have a key, you know, 
if you wish to go there at any time.” 

“ Thank you, Jim. I may look in to-mor- 
row sometime. I want to see — ” She flushed, 
and hesitated; then calmly: “We left two 
trunks there, you know.” 

He nodded. “ Go and rummage. The jan- 
itor has orders. He has taken splendid care 
of that big white cat of yours. You’ll find 
•everything in order, and quite comfortable.” 

So he made his adieux and went his way; 
and Mr. Dineen followed, and Jack and his 
father retired to their suite, and Silvette and 
Diana went to theirs. 

331 


Japonette 


“ Little sister,” whispered Silvette, leaning 
over Diana’s pillow, where she lay, eyes closed ; 
“ are you any happier than you were this 
morning ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Very much?” 

“ Very much.” 

And that was all. Silvette looked down at 
the white face and closed eyes, sighed, and ex- 
tinguished the night light. 

The eyes of happiness close only in sleep, 
or in the arms of the best beloved. 

Silvette’s excited heart began to sing with 
the first ray of the morning sun. Also she 
arose, dressed, and breakfasted with her 
equally reckless affianced, which showed that 
theirs was a hopeless case, and a recent one. 

Dineen came and took Rivett away. Diana 
tasted a grape fruit in bed, and lay thinking 
until noon brought luncheon and her maid 
pro tern. 

Jack and Silvette, unable to persuade her, 
drifted off somewhere into the sparkling con- 
fusion of the metropolis, promising to return 
and take her for a drive through the Park. 

About five o’clock she summoned her maid. 

332 


Desunt Cetera 


“ Please say that I have gone to the studio 
apartment to get some things from my trunks,” 
she said ; and wrote out the address in case 
either Mr. Rivett or Mr. Dineen wished to 
communicate with her. 

Then, in furs, walking skirt and veil, and 
her tired little heart already outstripping her 
feet, she went out into the sunset world upon 
the pilgrimage so long desired, so long and 
wistfully deferred. 

Her pulse beat fast as she entered his street. 
The sight of the house filled her with 
sudden trepidation, but she knew that he was 
not there. She had nearly three hours alone 
before her, unless the others, returning to 
find her note, might telephone and interrupt 
her. 

Her key turned smoothly in the lock; she 
crossed the threshold, holding her breath. 

A dull, mellow light filled the studio. In 
the stillness a faint fragrance of tobacco hung 
in the air. Step by step she advanced, looking 
at each familiar object as she came to it and 
passed it — pausing to lay a gloved hand on 
the sofa where, ages ago, two very young 
people sat, touching with lingering fingers 
the empty silver bowl which once, on a sum- 

333 


Japonette 


mer day, had been almost hidden under a 
fragrant load of peonies. 

Something behind her — and it was not a 
sound — made her turn. The white cat sat 
looking at her with no recognition in its solemn 
eyes ; and when she moved forward, hand out- 
stretched in wistful appeal, it calmly retreated 
into the demi light of the bedroom beyond. 

The well of desolation was filling fast now ; 
she sank into a wide chair by the tea table 
and, lifting her veil, touched her eyes with her 
handkerchief. Then, disciplined, controlled, 
she lay back looking into the bedroom where 
she and her sister had slept and awakened 
through those three magic days which even 
Fate allowed before foreclosing on her destiny 
forever. 

Pink bars of sunlight slanted on the wall, 
warming the painted armor of a forgotten 
dead man — forgotten no more than some 
among the living. A great lady, painted in 
her jewels, seemed to flush and smile as a rosy 
bar crept across her cheek. Doubtless she, 
too, had loved before she died. 

"The girl extended her arm listlessly along 
the upholstered arm of her chair, and looked 
at her white-gloved hand. 

334 



“‘So this is your apartment?’ he said.” 


















Desunt C cetera 


In the hollow of that hand she had once 
held Love, and had smilingly released it. Out 
of that little palm Love had flown far beyond 
her ken ; and there was no returning for that 
winged thing. 

Then, very quietly, she bowed her head, eyes 
sheltered by her hand, and remained so, mo- 
tionless, for a long while. 

The outer bell had sounded twice before 
she realized that it was the bell of the apart- 
ment. Dazed, she rose, stood a moment col- 
lecting herself, then walked to the door and 
opened it. 

Colonel Curmew stepped jauntily in. 

So astonished was she that she scarcely un- 
derstood what he was about before they both 
were on the studio threshold — she instinctively 
retreating, he advancing, wreathed in a smile 
so remarkable that it fascinated her. 

“ What an odd thing of you to do,’’ she 
said, still confused by the suddenness of his 
invasion, groping instinctively for the reason. 

“ You left word at the Plaza ; I under- 
stood,” he said, his eyes fairly popping at her, 
then palely roving around the place. 

“ So this is your apartment ? ” he said. 
“ What a discreet and charming little nest ! ” 

335 


Japonette 


“ I think you don’t understand,” she said ; 
“ this is Mr. Edgerton’s apartment.” 

He looked at her oddly, then burst into 
laughter. 

“ You clever girl ! ” he chuckled. 

“ What ! ” she said, bewildered. 

But he only smirked at her. 

“ Look here, little girl,” he said, “ suppose 
you begin to make your eyes behave, and come 
down to actualities. You know what I want; 
I know what you want. We’ve been wasting 
time all summer. I’m no fool; neither are 
you, as you show by selecting this nice, little 
nook for a good, sensible talk.” 

She only stared at him, thinking he had gone 
mad, and he laughed and twirled his mustache. 

“ Nix for the baby stare,” he said reprov- 
ingly. “ I tell you I know what a girl like you 
wants — privacy, discretion, and the usual . . . 
And I’ve got it, little girl — wads of it ! ” 

The grotesqueness of the dream seemed to 
make her stupid; she tried to find some sense 
and reason in what this man was saying to 
her, strove to comprehend him, his visit, his 
words. 

“ Are you asking me to — marry you,” she 
said, confused. 


336 


Desunt C cetera 


“ Marry you ! ” he repeated, his expressive 
features suddenly blank, then jocular again. 

“ Then— what ” 

And, suddenly staring into the sinister 
smirk, she comprehended, and turned ashy 
white. 

Even he could not mistake the genuineness 
of that white horror. 

“ You — you d-dont understand/’ he stam- 
mered, his effrontery shaken. . . . I — per- 
haps I didn’t understand you, either. . . . But 
I thought — I supposed ” 

His top hat fell clattering on the floor; he 
stooped and picked it up, lifting a redder and 
more impudent countenance to confront her. 

“ After all,” he said with a sneer, “ I had 
a right to think you knew what you were 
about — a girl, alone, who lives on her wits.” 

He hesitated, malignant now, writhing in- 
ternally under her pallid contempt. 

“ By God ! ” he said, “ you’re nothing better 
than any other hired woman ! I helped hire 
you myself.” And added, between his teeth : 
“ You little clawing cat! I know damned 
well you’re an adventuress, but your game is 
beyond me ” 

He swung insolently on his heel, and found 

33 7 


Japonette 


himself looking straight into the eyes of Jacob 
Rivett. 

“ Go out ! ” said Mr. Rivett in a low voice. 

The colonel stared at him, confounded. 

“ Go out ! ” repeated Rivett softly. 

The colonel, flushed and utterly discoun- 
tenanced, started toward the door. Mr. Rivett 
followed him out into the hall, closing the 
door behind him. 

Diana stood stock still, as though turned to 
stone. There had been a crash outside ; then, 
in rather rapid but irregular succession, a se- 
ries of thuds. It was Colonel Curmew’s im- 
pact with wall and floor; Mr. Dineen had been 
patiently knocking him down until that bat- 
tered and half-senseless warrior took the 
count. Then one careful and heavy kick sent 
him down the first of the flights of stairs, and 
a moment later Diana heard the door bell. 

She opened; Mr. Rivett walked in slowly, 
as though abstracted; Mr. Dineen came be- 
hind, straightening his scarf-pin. 

“ You left the door ajar, so we walked in,” 
observed Rivett, ignoring his previous en- 
trance. He strolled about, glancing up at 
the pictures and tapestries. Then his manner 
changed. 


333 


Desunt C cetera 


“ Well, my dear,” he said briskly, “ Mr. 
Dineen and I stopped at the hotel, and your 
maid told us you had come here to get things 
out of your trunks. So, if you’ve finished 
rummaging, the car is below, and Jack and 
Silvette are waiting tea for us at the St. 
Regis.” 

“ Thank you,” she said in a low voice. 

“ Had you rather not come ? ” 

“ I had rather not — if you don’t mind.” 

He walked over to her, took both her hands, 
and looked into her eyes. 

“ I am at your service, my dear,” he said. 

“ I know it. . . . My heart will always be 
in yours.” 

His face grew grimmer. 

“ I guess we understand each other, child. 
. . . Next to my own — Silvette — and you. 
. . . Shall the car wait for you ? ” 

“ I will walk back.” 

“ Dinner at seven,” he said, releasing her 
hands. 

She nodded, forcing a smile. 

“ At seven,” she repeated, offering her hand 
to Mr. Dineen, who squeezed it shamelessly 
while unfeigned admiration transfigured his 
broad face. 


339 


Japonette 


So they left her there in the studio, stand- 
ing in the dusk, head held high, and in her 
eyes that dauntless courage that remains 
though lips quiver and the hot tears sting the 
straining throat. 

Cautiously, lest self-control slip the leash, 
she reseated herself and lay back in the chair, 
closing her eyes. Whatever battle raged with- 
in her was fought out there in darkness 
and in silence. She lay motionless, never 
stirring save for the slow clenching and relax- 
ing of her fingers; and at last even that 
ceased. 

Then the steel nerves and iron will that had 
mastered the storm and soothed it, turned 
traitor, tricking her, furtively relaxing in the 
wake of exhaustion. 

In the dark the white cat stole in, hesitated, 
looked at her ; then, satisfied, stretched out on 
a Persian rug in front of her. 

Long ago all sound had ceased in her ears ; 
her heart beat quietly, her breath came and 
went as evenly and softly as the respiration of 
a sleeping child. 

Through the tall windows the starlight 
touched her; at her feet the white cat dozed, 
dreaming of nothing. 

34 ° 


Desunt C cetera 


Confused, the brilliancy of electric light in 
her eyes, Diana found herself sitting bolt up- 
right, clutching the arms of her chair, and 
staring at a dark figure which leaned over her 
— a man, laughing, still amazed, still a little 
incredulous. 

“ Jim ! ” she faltered. 

“ Certainly. What do you mean by going 
to sleep in my favorite chair ? ” 

“ Oh, dear ! Oh, Jim ! ” she wailed, drop- 
ping back helplessly into the depths of the 
chair, “ I must be perfectly crazy to do such 
a thing ! What time is it ? I came in here to 
— to get something ” — she pressed her hands 
to her temples — “ to find — to look — Oh, I 
don’t know what I’m talking about ! ” 

Her hands dropped; she gazed hopelessly 
up at him. 

“ Did you ever hear of such a perfect 
fool?” she said. “ What time is it? — if you 
think I can bear the information.” 

“ It’s only eight.” 

“ Eight ! Jim, dear, will you go to that tele- 
phone and inform Mr. Rivett that I have not 
been run over, murdered, or arrested ? ” 

He went over and telephoned, adding: 
“ Don’t wait for either of us. Leave the tick- 

341 


Japonette 


ets on Diana’s dresser. We’ll be along pretty 
soon.” 

“What did you mean, Jim?” she asked, 
struggling with her veil. 

“ It’s so late,” he said, “ that you’d better 
wait for me to get into my jeans, and then I’ll 
take you over and you can get into yours, and 
then we’ll dine together, and go in for the 
last act if we have time.” 

“ I’ve spoiled your evening,” she said. 

“ Do you think so ? ” 

“ Oh, I know it. Did Mr. Rivett think me 
an utter lunatic ? ” 

“ He didn’t say so over the wire.” 

“ What did he say, Jim ? ” 

“ Nothing that meant anything.” 

" Tell me ! ” 

“ All he said was for me to take care of you. 

. . . You perceive the irony, don’t you?” 

“ Irony ? ” she repeated, looking at him. 
“ Why? Aren’t you capable of doing it? ” 

“ Do you need anybody to look after you? ” 
he asked, smiling. 

Slowly she lifted her eyes to his; his smile 
died out. Never had he looked into such a 
desolate face. 

“What is it?” he said, astonished; “what 
342 


Desunt C cetera 


on earth is the matter, Diana? Has anything 
happened ? ” 

“ Nothing — unusual — I suppose.” 

“ You are not ill, are you? ” 

The tears were slowly blinding her, and she 
turned her head, standing so, fighting for self- 
mastery. 

“ Diana ” 

She motioned him to silence. He stood it 
as long as he could, then stepped over beside 
her and touched her arm. 

“ Tell me, dear? ” he said under his breath. 

She strove to speak — could not, yet; mo- 
tioned him aside, but he would have none of 
such commands. 

“ You took my troubles on your slender 
shoulders,” he said ; “ may I not help you to 
carry one or two of yours ? ” . . . And, as 
she made no answer : “ Dear, if you have not 
loved me, you have done for me, perhaps, even 
more than love might have done.” 

She had dried her eyes ; now she turned to 
him quietly. 

“ It was love. . . . But don’t mistake it, 
Jim. ... It was a love that asked for noth- 
ing that it had not — desired nothing that you 
had not already given. ... I thought it best 

343 


Japonette 


to tell you — because — it is a world of men; 
and women — sometimes — are held — lightly in 
it ” 

Her lip quivered, but she, somehow, man- 
aged to meet his eyes and smile. 

“ All that happened long ago, Jim.” 

“Did love — die?” 

“ Yours,” she said, smiling. “ I slew it very 
neatly for you.” 

“ I mean yours, Diana ? ” 

“ Mine ? Why, I gave you something bet- 
ter than that,” she began gaily. Then her face 
altered; she fell silent, watching him — at first 
incredulous, then a little dazed. 

“ Didn’t you know that I loved you ? ” he 
said. 

“ You mean — last summer. . . . Yes.” 

“Now! Didn’t you know it?” 

“ I— no.” 

Far in the chaos of her brain she heard his 
words echoing, reechoing in confused reitera- 
tion. 

He was saying, slowly : “ There has never 
been a moment since that day that my life has 
not been yours — that you have not possessed 
my heart, my mind, filled them, owned them, 
overwhelmingly inspired me with love and 
344 


Desimt Cetera 


adoration for you alone. What I am, and 
will be, I am, and shall be by grace of you. 

“ But gratitude is not the love of man for 
woman; it is not even part of it; it is a sep- 
arate passion — a shrine by itself. I worship 
you there in my own fashion. 

“ But you, Diana — Japonette — ” He flung 
one arm around her body. She placed a firm 
hand on his wrist as though to break the clasp, 
looked at him, and began to tremble. 

“Can you love me, Japonette ?” 

“ I ” 

“Can you ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

Her hand tightened over his wrist as he 
drew her close, crushing her to him. She 
looked up blindly into his eyes as he kissed 
her; then her lids unclosed and her silent lips 
moved, forming his name. 

They neither dressed for the theater nor 
went to it. They dined together at an out- 
rageous hour in an unfashionable haunt of 
his. 

Silvette, Jack, Mr. Rivett, and Mr. Dineen 
found them at supper in the little parlor when 
they arrived from the play. 

345 


Japonette 


“ Di ! ” cried Silvette, “ what on earth has 
possessed you and Jim ? ” 

Her voice failed her at sight of her sister’s 
face. 

“That!” she exclaimed; “has that hap- 
pened ? Darling ! My little Di — my little, lit- 
tle girl ! ” she murmured, dropping on her 
knees beside her. 

Mr. Dineen looked foolishly at Mr. Rivett. 

“ Say it later, John,” whispered Mr. 
Rivett dryly. “ We’ll go downstairs for a 
while.” 

“You won’t!” said Diana, turning laugh- 
ingly on them. “ You will wish us happiness, 
and drink to it, too.” She rose, flushed and 
radiant. Silvette sprang to her feet and 
kissed her ; Jack seized her with determination, 
and made no ceremony about it. 

Then Diana walked straight up to Mr. Riv- 
ett, and held out both hands; and the little 
man kissed her grimly. 

Mr. Dineen’s blue eye sparkled; she looked 
at the big, jolly Irishman, audaciously de- 
lighted. 

“ What man has done, man may do,” she 
said. 

“ Faith, I’ll see if a woman can do it, too ! ” 

346 


Desunt Caetera 


he said, saluting her with all the reckless grace 
of his race. 

Then Edgerton’s hand was shaken and his 
shoulder patted, and Jack summoned legions 
of waiters from the regions below. 

Riyett’s burned-brown eyes bored through 
and through Edgerton as he took his hand. 

“ I thought you’d do it,” he said. 

“ Did you ? I wasn’t very hopeful myself,” 
said the young fellow, laughing. 

“ / was. . . . They’re good children — good 
children — like my own. ... If you will ex- 
cuse me, I will go and telegraph my wife. . . . 
It will be a happiness to her — a great happi- 
ness.” 

Jack thrust a glass into his hand. “ What’s 
this ? ” demanded his father. 

“ We are to drink health to them, dad.” 

Mr. Rivett inspected his glass, hesitated, 
while all waited; then, lifting it: 

“ They’re good children,” he said. “ Health, 
happiness, prosperity to them — and — to the 
house of Edgerton, Tennant and Company! 
. . . Break your glasses ! ” 


THE END 


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